Since 1976, the Costa Rican artist Jorge Jimenez Deredia has lived and worked in Italy, but this hasn¿t impeded his being in constant contact with his country and Latin America. Following a great deal of work and effort, resulting in the monumental sculpture of Saint Peter in the Vatican in 2002, and many other exhibitions, such as the monumental and most recent show that took place between June and September 2006 in the Boboli Gardens of the Pitti Palace and other public spaces in Florence, Jimenez Deredia has been incorporated as Member of the prestigious Academy of the Arts of Design (Academia delle Arti del Disegno), being the first member of non-European origin to form part of this Academy founded in 1563 by Cosimo I of Medici on the suggestion of the architect and painter Giorgio Vasari and to which belonged figures as distinguished as Michael Angelo and Galileo Galilei. In accordance with the incorporation document, the Academy recognises the philosophical support of the work of the Costa Rican artist, based fundamentally in the study and investigation of the sphere and the circle and its direct relation with humanism. This investigation has much in common with the links between the humanist cosmogony of his country and some philosophical postulates that sustain European culture and more specifically, Italian culture. Currently, Jimenez Deredia is working in a mega-project in his country called ¿The route of peace¿, financed by private Italian and Costa Rican companies. The works will represent nine nations, from Canada to Tierra del Fuego, a sculptural collection inspired in ¿the interpretation of the circle or sphere made by each one of the pre-Columbian peoples in these countries¿.