The fourth edition of the summer exhibition ‘A river of books in Piazza Cavallotti’ is underway, organized by Libreria Erasmus together with Carmignani Editrice and promoted by the independent publishing houses of the province of Pisa, which will be held in Pisa from 30 June to 14 July with the patronage of the Municipality of Pisa and the contribution of the Confcommercio of Pisa. The initiative was presented this morning at Palazzo Gambacorti by the Councilor for Tourism and Commerce Paolo Pesciatini, the vice-president of Confcommercio Pisa Alessandro Trolese, together with Alessio Giovarruscio, the head of the Erasmus Bookshop Enrico Stampacchia and the representatives of the publishing houses involved, including Micol Carmignani – Carmignani Editrice, Fabrizio Felici – Felici Editore, Maria Gaglioti- Pacini Editore, Michele Quirici – Tagete Edizioni.
For two weeks in Piazza Cavallotti, seven publishing houses from the Pisan area will present a series of outdoor evening meetings to give space to the literary production of the area. The big news of this edition will be the theming of the exhibition on ‘New Looks at Pisa’. Eight editorial novelties published in the last year by Pisan publishing houses and united by the centrality of the city of the tower under different perspectives, perspectives and themes will allow authors and readers of our city to find a common meeting point in Piazza Cavallotti. The participating publishing houses in the province of Pisa are Astarte Edizioni, Carmignani Editrice, Edizioni ETS, Felici Editore, Marchetti Editore, Mds Editore, Pacini Editore, Pisa University Press, Tagete Edizioni.
“This initiative – declared councilor Paolo Pesciatini – highlights how necessary it is to visit the numerous bookshops and small publishing houses in our city, which not only play an important cultural role, but also a commercial and tourist one. The publishing houses of our territory are united by the commitment to in-depth analysis of the history and cultural heritage of the lands of Pisa, as is well demonstrated by the initiative’s programme, dedicated to in-depth analysis and direct contact with those who have been Pisans or close to Pisan culture”.
The program from June 30th to July 14th
Sunday 30 June at 9.15pm
Meeting with Ilaria Sbrana, co-author of the book “A small steps for Pisa. Guide to the city’s illustrious figures” of the School of Italian Language and Culture of the Community of Sant’Egidio (November 2023, Carmignani publishing house) Micol Carmignani, publishing house, will speak. Teachers and students who co-authored the book will be interviewed
Synopsis Ten interviews with illustrious figures of the past. And then the new citizens, that world in the city: women and men, girls and boys from different countries, languages, ages and religions, all students of the School of Italian Language and Culture of the Community of Sant’Egidio. During outdoor lessons, teachers and students went in search of plaques commemorating writers, scientists, politicians and philosophers born or lived in Pisa. After studying the texts of the inscriptions, the life, works and thoughts of the protagonists were explored in depth in class. A book that is a sui generis guide: a city and its history become an opportunity for meeting and a bridge between cultures distant in space and time, placing them in dialogue with each other, united by the search for a new way of living.
Tuesday 2 July at 9.15pm
Meeting with Alessandro Bargagna and Chiara Celli, tourist guides and curators of the series of thematic itineraries Around Pisa. They will tell us about the latest book published: “The names of the streets of Pisa. What do they tell us?” (September 2023, Marchetti publisher)
Synopsis. Have you ever wondered who the person to whom the street you are traveling is dedicated to or what the meaning of the name of a certain street or square has? A walk among the stories that hide behind the names of the Pisan streets: each street tells us about a person or takes us back to an event, to ancient crafts or forgotten games. In particular, the names of the streets in the historic center of Pisa mainly concern two themes: saints or places and people linked to the Risorgimento, but there are also neighborhoods that talk about artists, writers or cities. There are 39 streets dedicated to women (including those dedicated to saints who lead us to the churches of the same name), 712 to men. What do the names of the streets tell us?
Thursday 4 July at 9.15pm
Meeting with Anna Gennai author of the book “Pisa. Walks with mathematical and physical curiosities” (December 2023, Felici editore)
Speakers will be Marco Massai, professor of history of physics, University of Pisa, Fabrizio Felici, editor
Synopsis. Walk around Pisa with a detector capable of revealing traces of mathematics and physics, discovering them not only in the scientific treatises of Fibonacci and Galileo, but hidden in monuments, palaces and churches. Explore the city with a scientific gaze, recovering the testimonies of illustrious people who lived in Pisa, and discover the humanistic side of subjects considered technical. The combination “Pisa city of art” and “Pisa city of science” finds a new definition in the proposed itineraries in the interweaving of its thousand-year history.
Friday 5 July
Meeting with Antonia Casini co-author of the children’s book “Ti presento Pisa” (October 2023, Pacini editore)
Francesca Petrucci, editor, journalist and writer, will speak
The students of “Fare Teatro” – Teatro Verdi di Pisa will interpret passages from the book
Synopsis. Do you know who Pisa is? It is a city born along the river, extends into the pine forests and is protected by the mountains; it grows in height – with its tower houses, bell towers and fortresses – but also underground! The great scientist Galileo Galilei, cinema and the first Italian calculator were born here. Walking through its streets means taking a journey into many different cultures and histories: did you know that many years ago Pisa was a seaside city and that the famous Leaning Tower is not the only thing in the city that is crooked? Discover Pisa, its fantastic animals, legends, miracles, foods that you can only eat here; but also its mummies, princes and knights. Reading age: from 6 years
Sunday 7 July at 9.15pm
Meeting with Piero Pierotti author of the book “True miracles of the Piazza dei Miracoli” (March 2024, Pacini editions)
Speaker Denise Ulivieri, professor of History of Architecture, University of Pisa Francesca Pacini, publisher
Synopsis. Piazza dei Miracoli, one of the most famous places in the world: a Mecca of art, to visit at least once in your life. And yet… it is poorly known. The ritual, hasty and conventional visits; the same stereotypes repeated for decades. It is thus, paradoxically, that the true miracles of the Square – contents truly worthy of observation and wonder – remain misunderstood, hidden and decontextualized. “The true miracles of the Square of Miracles” reverses this course: having as its reference above all the historiographical methods of Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, Georges Duby, Fernand Braudel and the French Annales school, the volume aims to read all the possible stories that – in parallel and miraculously – are linked to the Square, mostly preferring the synchronic history to the diachronic one. Piero Pierotti connects situations that are millennia distant from each other, but contiguous in space. He meets apparently minimal characters and shows what relationship they had with the grandiose phenomenon of the “creation of the Cathedrals” in Europe.
Tuesday 9 July at 9.15pm
Meeting with Riccardo Mazzanti author of the book “Popular culture and territories, the Pisan ways of saying” (February 2024, Pisa University Press)
Lorenzo Gremigni, a scholar of the Pisan vernacular, will speak
Synopsis. The volume is the completion of an attempt to analyze the relationships existing between popular culture and the territory in the geographical area of the city of Pisa. The objective is to contribute to re-evaluating the local popular tradition before the homologation processes erase them from the local socio-cultural heritage. A task of this kind can perhaps be considered more suitable for a study of social psychology, cultural anthropology or linguistics, but here it has been approached from a geographical perspective due to the firm belief that, by directly affecting also the spatial distribution of idioms , their historical and environmental origins and their impact on the territory, are fully included in cultural geography.
Thursday 11 July at 9.15pm
Meeting with Daniela Bernardini and Luigi Puccini, authors of the book “I Cinema dei preti. History of the parish halls in the diocese of Pisa” (April 2024, Ets)
Speakers will be Simonetta Della Croce, Arsenale cineclub Gabriele Masiero, journalist from La Nazione
Synopsis. In the 1960s, almost one cinema out of two was Catholic, as we read in the Pisan press of those years. «A screen for every bell tower», they said. Cinema accompanied the literacy of an Italy that was heading towards an economic boom and which, like literature, represented a fundamental tool for the education of the people. In this cultural climate “cinema theaters were established in a large number, with the special purpose of offering honest entertainment and safeguarding our youth and Christian families from the dangers of the immoral and corrupting cinema”, writes the Rivista del Cinematografo in its first issue . The parish halls in the diocese of Pisa were spaces present throughout the area, from the city to Versilia, from Garfagnana to the Etruscan area. The volume traces its history through the study of unpublished documents and the poignant testimonies of those who, personally, contributed to the construction and management, until its final closure.
Sunday 14 July at 9.15pm
Meeting with Enrico Stampacchia and Elena Ferrara, editors of the book
“The bombing of Pisa on 31 August 1943. From memories to stories, from testimony to historical memory” (2nd revised and corrected edition July 2024, Tagete editions)
Speakers will be Michele Quirici, publisher Fulvetti GianLuca, professor of contemporary history, University of Pisa
Synopsis. Pisa is a city, like all the rest, made up of houses, people, shops, noises and sounds. Among the latter there is a terrible one that comes from far away but that only the most attentive hear: that of the bombing of 31 August 1943. A page written in blood that has been told many times but, perhaps, still not enough . This book, published twenty years ago, when just over sixty years had passed since the events, and today re-published (widely revised and corrected) tries to save a piece of that tragic day. Twenty-eight witnesses accompany us into the hell that came from the sky and darkened the sun.
