Descrizione e studj dell’insigne fabbrica di S. Maria del Fiore metropolitana fiorentina
This post is thought to draw a conclusion on the book “Descrizione e studj dell’insigne fabbrica di S. Maria del Fiore metropolitana fiorentina” as well as on the tasks of “Friends with an Old Book” itself.
One of the biggest surprise I encountered during the exercise was the difference between the online source and meeting the book in reality. When I was searching the book online, I found a pdf version relatively easily. This gave me a brief understanding how this book is structured and what the topic was all about.
When went to Einsiedeln to visit the Library Werner Oechslin and I met my book for the first time, I was amazed at how big this book actually was. Due to the fact that I was scrolling through the pdf file and appreciating the beautiful illustrations, I didn’t realize the dimensions. Because I was working on the Laptop and the images were scaled to the size of my display, I expected the book to be much smaller. The fact that the written text was in proportion of the page (so the letters were very big) I imagined the book to be a normal size.
The actual size of 480mm on 350mm underlines its function. The book consist of a written part and another with illustrations. The written parts are an explanation of the structure or a detail of the dome in Florence. Each explanation is accompanied with an illustration. Because the illustrations are very detailed, the size really matter. And that was an information I really missed out as I was reading the pdf file online.
I encountered a couple of problems when dealing with my book over the past year. The first one was that my author wasn’t very popular. I couldn’t find any information about him and this book was his only one. Another problem was the language.
Because I can’t speak Italian, I couldn’t really understand the book.
But in general, the different tasks were well structured and very clear and even without understanding a word, you could learn a lot. In my case I learned that different illustrations and drawings are very helpful to understand a Building and how much time somebody can spend studying for example the Dome in Florence.