About a Year ago you presented to use the very first task of «Friends with an old Book» and in the first moment I felt ready to get to learn about an old architectural book. But as soon as I found out a little bit more about my book «La pratica della perspettiva di opera molto utile a pittori, a scultori & ad architetti» written by Daniele Matteo Alvise Barbaro, I realised that this won’t be an easy «Friendship», because the book is not only written in an older Italian language, but is also written with an old typography. So at that moment I had some major doubts which where eased when I realised that the monthly tasks were rather simple to understand and that it is a well-chosen series of tasks wich build up nicely on each other and that they always had the effect of some new revelation about the book.
But I especially at the end I had the feeling that this wasn’t really a «Friendship» because even thought I tried and had, for the tasks, to understand the book, we never really could communicate in a way that would be needed for a «Friendship». To be honest I could barely understand something. There where parts and sections which I could understand, but due to the old typography, the task with the PDF-Scann and the translation didn’t really work out as I hoped it would.
But nonetheless I learned more than I could imagine about such an old and not translated book. I had many interesting and exciting interactions with it, especially when I had to go to the ETH-Library in the main building to ready a such old book, wich was something I had never done before.
And also the last exercise, where we had to compare five or six books with each other, was really interesting. Even though our books had the general theme in common, their ideas which they represent didn’t always get along, so we started a discussion between the authors and there books.
In conclusion I would say that this exercise was a very special experience with many ups and downs, which I kind of enjoyed. But I’m also a little bit disappointed by the fact that I could never get really deep in to the book because the immense language barrier. So if this exercise will be repeated, I would think that it would help to have books which provide a translation.