Becoming friends with an old book. My first question was how I can become friends with a book without reading it? How to understand the objectives of the author without knowing the content of the book but only reading a couple of words, watching at their drawings and smelling it.
At the beginning I was asked to collect some general information on the book and his author author. It was not so interesting, a little bit like a schoolwork. But even in this task I began to ask myself what kind of architect was Guarino Guarini. I surfed on internet in order to understand more about this writer. I have seen for the first time a digital version of the original book. Even if it was digital copy the book seemed a very old book. The pages were yellowed and the edge was irregular. At that time I supposed that it was a big and heavy book, but as we know and how I understood in task 2, the book is small and compact.
The second task was the best one. In this task we had the opportunity to get in touch with one copy of the original edition of the book. We went in Einsideln and we discovered our book in the best place we could imagine to see it for the first time. The Oechslin library in Einsideln is a place where there is a large collection of old books of architecture.
In this task I could touch for the first time my book. At that time, I was impressed to see how many information of the book can be collected only by seeing an original copy.
In the third task the target was to discover the other publications of my book until 1800. Unfortunately, there is no other publication between 1674 and 1800. Therefore, was impossible to discover something more. It seems that in that period the book has lost in relevance. I wonder why a book of such a famous architect has only one edition? Maybe is caused by the historical period. I would have expected that in the industrial revolution century one book of a good architect which deals with factories could play a more important role
In the fourth task I had to understand the relationship between this book and its images. I regret that I couldn’t have a physical contact with our book in this phase. At the second task I was more concerned on the text and how the book was physically made. In this I hadn’t enough time to analyze the relationship between the text and the image. Anyway, the digital copy allowed me to understand the deep relationship between text and images of the book. The last task was for me was the most enjoyable. While speaking with other students, I understood that all previuos tasks were essential to get really in touch with the content of my book and I was able to compare my book with those of other students. During the presentation of my book to other students I realized how many information I learned about the book.