The last book of Mario Pescatori
"Images and Stories"
forewards by Tazio Angelini and Gerald Marks

The collection in this remarkable book of Mario Pescatori’s art opens a window into the soul of a deeply reflective and humanistic surgeon. His art is the psychological lens through which the reader is treated to a view of his life’s chronicle. The images he has created and incorporated into this outstanding collection spanning forty years depict the struggle of a serious surgeon striving for excellence in his chosen field of colorectal surgery as he deals with the vicissitudes of a highly personal business of marriage, fatherhood, difficult personal interactions and the troubling events of world politics. Lines, form and color, in surreal, abstract, figurative, metaphorical or representational sketches, drawings and paintings in mixed media are used to tell his story.
   The story expressed by his art which is a fusion of the soul and intellect vividly records the journey with its full spectrum of emotions. Every artists endeavors to create an image that captures the eye and releases the mind and Mario Pescatori achieves this goal while successfully managing to create a sense of place and time which pulls the observer in to feel the mood of the moment as felt by the artist. With my meeting Mario Pescatori a quarter of a century ago in the unique setting of the ancient operating room of the original St. Mark’s Hospital in London where he was serving as a fellow with the very famous Sir Alan Parks while I was a guest of my good friend and collaborator, surgeon Peter Hawley, I appreciated a combination of things. Mario, I learned to my delight, in addition to having serious intentions to pursue a career in colorectal surgery in my favourite city away from home, Rome, Italy, was also a fellow artist.
   My art career was just undergoing a rebirth and for that reason there was an immediate feeling of kinship; I knew that I had met a spiritual buddy. Mario kindly shared an early collection of his art with me and because of our special connection. I have enjoyed following Mario’s contributions to the colorectal surgical scientific literature as he progressed through an outstanding surgical career as an innovator, educator and respected expert in his field. His prolific writing and editorial activity in medicine is balanced equally by the large body of poetry and prose he published. Mario is one of a selected few surgeons involved in the structured process of creating visual art. The act of surgery as a performing and visual art simultaneously serving humanity can properly be labelled “the ultimate art form”.
   Bertrand Russell wrote that to be happy, a person should either be a scientist or an artist. We can add to that to be both is an extraordinary gift. Mario owns that gift. His art is mostly simple, gestural and understated without distractions and offering great room for the imagination to spin the story that most fits. (…)

                                                                                  Gerald J. Marks

   Gerald Marks, now is eighties, professor of surgery at the Lankenau Hospital, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, and for many years a colorectal surgeon at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Pennsylvania, is also a very talented aquarellist. He was the first to promote sphincter preservation in conjunction with high dose preoperative radiation, thus decreasing both the number of permanent stomas and the recurrence rate. Serving as the Founding President of SAGES, now the largest general surgery society in USA, was another important contribution he made to the field of surgery.

The book may be ordered at biblios@gonlinet.com, cost 15 euros + shipment expenses