The fourth edition of the summer review 'A river of books in Piazza Cavallotti', organised by the Erasmus Bookshop together with Carmignani Editrice and promoted by the independent publishing houses of the province of Pisa, will be held in Pisa from Sunday 30 June to Sunday 14 July with the patronage of the Municipality of Pisa and the contribution of Confcommercio di Pisa.
For a fortnight in Piazza Cavallotti, seven publishing houses from the Pisa area will present a series of open-air evening meetings to give space to the area's literary production.
The great novelty of this edition will be the thematisation of the review on 'Nuovi sguardi su Pisa'. Eight new books published in the last year by Pisan publishing houses and united by the centrality of the city of the tower under different looks, perspectives and themes will allow authors and readers of our city to find a common meeting point in Piazza Cavallotti. The participating publishing houses from the province of Pisa are Astarte Edizioni, Carmignani Editrice, Edizioni ETS, Felici Editore, Marchetti Editore, Mds Editore, Pacini Editore, Pisa University Press, Tagete Edizioni.
The programme from 30 June to 14 July
Sunday 30 June at 9.15 p.m.
Meeting with Ilaria Sbrana co-author of the book "A piccoli passi per Pisa. Guida ai personaggi illustri della città" by the School of Italian Language and Culture of the Community of Sant'Egidio (November 2023, Carmignani editrice) Micol Carmignani, publisher, will speak. Teachers and students co-authors of the book will be interviewed
Synopsis Ten interviews with famous people from 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 open-air lessons, teachers and students went in search of plaques commemorating men of letters, scientists, politicians and philosophers who were born or lived in Pisa. After studying the texts of the inscriptions, the lives, works and thoughts of the protagonists were explored in class. A book that is a guide sui generis: a city and its history become an opportunity for encounters 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 9.15 p.m.
Meeting with Alessandro Bargagna and Chiara Celli, tourist guides and editors of the series of thematic itineraries A giro per Pisa. They will talk about their latest published book: 'I nomi delle strade di Pisa. What do they tell us?" (September 2023, Marchetti editore)
Synopsis. Have you ever wondered who the person is to whom the street you are walking down is dedicated or what the meaning of the name of a certain street or square is? A walk through the stories behind the names of Pisa's streets: each street tells us about a person or takes us back to an event, to ancient trades or forgotten games. In particular, the names of the streets in Pisa's historic centre relate mainly to two themes: saints or places and people linked to the Risorgimento, but there are also neighbourhoods that speak of artists, writers or cities. There are 39 streets dedicated to women (including those dedicated to saints that lead us to their namesake churches), to men 712. What do the street names tell us?
Thursday 4 July 9.15 p.m.
Meeting with Anna Gennai author of the book 'Pisa. Walks with mathematical and physical curiosities" (December 2023, Felici editore)
Speakers: Marco Massai, lecturer in the history of physics, University of Pisa Fabrizio Felici, publisher
Synopsis. Walking around Pisa with a detector able to reveal traces of mathematics and physics, discovering them not only in the scientific treatises of Fibonacci and Galileo, but concealed in monuments, buildings and churches. Exploring the city with a scientific eye, recovering the testimonies of illustrious personalities who lived in Pisa, and discovering the humanistic side of subjects considered technical. The binomial 'Pisa city of art' and 'Pisa city of science' finds in the proposed itineraries a new definition in the interweaving of its millenary history.
Friday 5 July 9.15 p.m.
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
Excerpts from the book will be performed by the students of "Fare Teatro" - Teatro Verdi of Pisa
Synopsis. Do you know who Pisa is? It is a city that was born along the river, stretches through the pinewoods 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, the 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 town and that the famous Leaning Tower is not the only thing in town that is crooked? Discover Pisa, its fantastic animals, legends, miracles, foods you can only eat here; but also its mummies, princes and knights. Reading age: from 6 years
Sunday 7 July at 9.15 p.m.
Meeting with Piero Pierotti author of the book "True Miracles of the Piazza dei Miracoli" (March 2024, Pacini edizioni)
Speaker: Denise Ulivieri, lecturer in 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 be visited at least once in a lifetime. Yet... it is poorly known. The visits are ritual, hurried and conventional; the same stereotypes repeated for decades. It is thus, paradoxically, that the true miracles of the Piazza - contents truly worthy of observation and wonder - remain misunderstood, hidden and decontextualised. "The True Miracles of the Piazza dei Miracoli" reverses this course: taking as its reference above all the historiographical methods of Marc Bloch, Lucien Febvre, Georges Duby, Fernand Braudel and the French school of the Annales, the volume seeks to read all the possible histories that - in parallel and miraculously - are linked to the Piazza, mostly preferring synchronic to diachronic history. Piero Pierotti connects situations thousands of years apart, but contiguous in space. He meets seemingly minimal characters and shows how they were related to the grandiose phenomenon of the 'creation of Cathedrals' in Europe.
Tuesday 9 July 9.15 pm
Meeting with Riccardo Mazzanti, author of the book 'Popular culture and territories, Pisa's idioms' (February 2024, Pisa University Press)
Lorenzo Gremigni, an expert on the Pisan vernacular, will speak.
Synopsis. The volume is the completion of an attempt to analyse the relations existing between popular culture and the territory in the geographical area of the city of Pisa. The aim is to contribute to the revaluation of local popular traditions before the processes of homologation erase them from the local socio-cultural heritage. A task of this kind may perhaps be considered more suited to a study of social psychology, cultural anthropology or linguistics, but here it has been tackled from a geographical viewpoint out of the firm conviction that, since it also directly concerns the spatial distribution of idioms, their historical and environmental origins and their impact on the territory, it is fully within the scope of cultural geography.
Thursday 11 July at 9.15 p.m.
Meeting with Daniela Bernardini and Luigi Puccini authors of the book "I Cinema dei preti. Storia delle sale parrocchiali nella diocesi di Pisa" (April 2024, Ets)
Speakers: Simonetta Della Croce, Arsenale film club Gabriele Masiero, La Nazione journalist
Synopsis. In the 1960s, almost every second cinema was Catholic, as we read in the Pisa press of those years. 'A screen for every bell tower', it was said. The cinema accompanied the literacy of an Italy heading towards an economic boom and, like literature, represented a fundamental tool for the education of the people. In this cultural climate 'cinemas were set up in large numbers for the special purpose of providing honest entertainment and safeguarding our youth and Christian families from the dangers of immoral and corrupting cinema', wrote the Rivista del Cinematografo in its first issue. Parish theatres in the diocese of Pisa were present throughout the area, from the city to Versilia, from Garfagnana to the Etruscan area. The book traces their history through the study of unpublished documents and the poignant testimonies of those who, in the first person, contributed to their construction and management, until their final closure.
Sunday 14 July, 9.15 p.m.
Meeting with Enrico Stampacchia and Elena Ferrara editors of the book "The bombardment of Pisa on 31 August 1943. Dai ricordi ai racconti, dalla testimonianza alla memoria storica" (2nd revised and corrected edition July 2024, Tagete edizioni)
Speakers: Michele Quirici, publisher Fulvetti GianLuca, professor of contemporary history, University of Pisa
Synopsis. Pisa is a city, like all cities, 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 recounted many times but, perhaps, still not enough. This book, which came out twenty years ago, when little more than sixty years had passed since the events, and is now published again (extensively revised and corrected) tries to save a piece of that tragic day. Twenty-eight witnesses accompany us inside the inferno that came from the sky and darkened the sun.
