WINNER
Teatro di natura
Text and art by Michelangelo Setola
Canicola, Italy, 2021
What the jury said
“Michelangelo Setola’s first full-length comic for children in colour helps us discover the most important early researcher into natural history, Ulisse Aldrovandi, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of his birth. Told in the first person from the age of twelve to adulthood, it reprises Aldrovandi’s original engravings of animals, both real and fantastic, and ancient remains and fossils. Setola combines the factual with the fantastic, showing young Ulisse seeing and studying the ancient and natural worlds for himself, even talking with the animals and plants. The book encourages the reader to cultivate a sense of wonder and engage with nature and history directly.”