1743
Autore: padre Giovanni Maria della Torre,
Incisore Filippo de Grado
I was coordinating the transport, immersed in half closed boxes and half open, heated and concentrated to give the correct indications verifying that they were understood and executed. Anyone who has never had command tasks can not know how much effort it requires to do things. All in any afternoon of February after spending the morning at school.
In that I approach the ZiettaP&L (Peace and Love) and urgently calls me by showing me the booklet, opening one of the tables and claiming that I would stop anything to dedicate myself to the beauty of the book. It is called ADHD disorder, i.e. attention disorder and in my family has been nourished with love since the first days of life even in those who were excluded by nature, and it is something that disturbs me enormously. I took the book by hiccuping, I threw it in the bag and continued in the organization.
It takes it easy to enjoy things and ZiettaP&L knows I can be a bitch.
When they arrived calm and silence (or better I conquered them) I opened it and studied.
It is not a book any this, it is an atlas, that is a book formed only by tables. Lack of the forehead and the ligature is in original rigid parchment, the card is hand paper, the period is first eighteenth century and there is a note of possession, that is the name of the owner of the book. The forehead has never been, it is not that it has been lost in time.
The sound of the paper that opens is a slight creaking that fills the silent room. I turn the pages and open the tables. They are all scientific tables, engraved with a jeweler's expertise, printed by Filippo De Grado on indications of Giovanni Maria della Torre. And that's where the story starts.
Charles of Bourbon he entered Naples in 1734 and became king of the Two Sicilies giving a ruler to a territory that for over two centuries had not one. He is an illusionist convinced that the only way to maintain absolute power is to feed and support culture, namely arts and science. Starts the great building works including the San Carlo theatre, the Royal Palace of Caserta di Vanvitelli, the Hotel of the Poor. And of course he calls important people to himself.
Since then the fortune surrenders to the bold, just four years later, to Herd an extraordinary discovery that will influence culture and style: a city buried under ash. Carlo orders the excavations and Naples becomes a cultural capital.
So Charles calls, among others, Father Giovanni Maria della Torre, Genoese noble teacher of physics and mathematics, who proposes a scientific text entitled Science of Nature. It is 1743.
But if writing a science text can work even only a goose pen and handwriting that will then be printed, different is the question of the boards. These must be scientific, precise, clear. We need a suitable designer. And here's John calling Philip.
Philip is the son and nephew of Flemish engravers, his name De Grado because the grandfather had a surname that nobody understood in Italy, Van Graad, too barbaric. De Grado sounds much better. But Philip is the best of the family: a real natural talent. The stretch is sharp, light, very precise. Moreover it is a little pig, often ago and remakes the boards throwing away very expensive material, but it is undoubtedly very good.
John, as Superintendent of the Royal Stamperia, summons him to the royal library, sits him in front of him and explains his work.
“Non sono semplici tavole, ma l’idea nuova e folle è di rendere il libro utilizzabile da tutti gli studiosi di scienze, ho già visto una cosa simile, una cosa francese… Capite? “
Philip doesn't understand, but his entrepreneurial sense makes him fall apart something important.
“Per questo bisogna contenere i costi, – prosegue Giovanni entusiasmandosi ma poco, giusto quello che conviene a un padre- per poterne stampare decine e decine, mandarlo in tutte le università, rendere pubblica la scienza. E sapete come? “
Philip doesn't know. He pushes the back towards his interlocutor, paying attention not to lose even a word.
"Facendo small tables! We make them small, we fill them inside the book and we make them an atlas that can be held in my pocket, God forgives me if I say it but it would be like a breviary for laity, because science must be democratic, science is exactness of observations, science will give us the measure of the world!", then thinking it adds "and also the power of God, of course".
Philip is good and knows he can do it, but he must also send a family and a typography, and then he answers: "The work is ambitious, with the help of the Most High I will try to do so, but I will need a lot of material and it will be a very expensive job. "
Silence falls between the two. They scrutinize and a perfume of paper and ink surrounds them. In the end, they're in the royal library.
Father John Mary of the Tower knows the things of the world. The required figure is quite high but the mission is of fundamental importance because it is innovative. Shortly bargained on the price, it offers a little less gold coins and some privilege. Philip has a waterline in his mouth: he does not want to miss such an important commission for King Charles, but nevertheless raises. The two look at each other, they know each one has their own needs but the final purpose is equal for both: to make science accessible to everyone, as much as possible. So they shake hands.
Between 1748 and 1749 the two volumes are published; this is one of the two and you can see it in the long Ipnotic video of which I put the link below. It is in perfect conditions, complete with all its 31 tables and with the signature of what could be the name of an ancient owner, someone who took care of this book and whose sons and grandchildren forgot in a high shelf among the old books that no longer affect until one day, the grandchildren of the children had to get rid of all that ciarpume that weighed their lives and sold it together with the other books, nice bookstore, clean Until he arrived in the frivolous hands of Zarina who put it on sale but with little success because a closed book is confused and mimics in the middle of bronzes, silver and prints and then put it in a shelf, standing between the saga of Harry Potter and "The seekers of bones" by Michael Cricthon.
The time has come for this book to speak again.
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