Giovanni Cavazzon..


MARIA LETIZIA SEBASTIANI
written for "Ink and Nib"


The National Central Library in Florence was founded on December 22, 1861 when the Magliabechiana Library and the Palatina Library merged to become one. It is one of the most important bibliographic Italian institutes in terms of the extent and importance of its stored heritage. It is the only library with complete documentary evidence of the nation’s cultural life since 1861.
The Institute holds 25,000 manuscripts, 4,000 incunabula, 29,000 16th century editions, over 7 million volumes of printed editions, more than 1 million autographs and 250,000 periodicals of which 15,000 are still in print. On top of this there is a considerable amount of so-called minor material. Among these we find important business and commercial documents as well as travel guides, illustrated postcards and a vast collection of artist books and token books. This is comparable to the collections held at the National Library of Paris and to the most important European and non-European ones. The stacks cover a distance of 124 km and 1.5 km are added every year since the Institute has the legal deposit of all that is printed in the country. Besides being the Italian depository, it manages all the born digital production and digital projects. The art patrimony amounts to about fifty works among which we find busts, statues, majolicas and paintings from different periods, some of which are of particular artistic and historical value.
Its remarkable patrimony with regards to the variety of modern and contemporary publishing constitutes the memory of the twentieth century, which was perhaps the most important century for Italian culture after the Renaissance. Among its holdings we find books and magazines, first editions of 20th century works, illustrated books for children from the late 19th century to our present day, but also ex libris, illustrations and comic strips from the 1920s and onward with particular reference to the birth of the national comic strip. We also find autographs, manuscripts, sheet music and music books as well as the very special world of artist books that stand witness to the trends and culture of the time.
Giovanni Cavazzon’s refined “ink and nib” works have a special place in this scrinium. As we are taken on a journey winding along the path of lines and strokes, the themes of the works exhibited go from landscapes to amazing female portraits and from the representation of flowers to architectural elements which at times lie in a state of neglect, leading us through a journey along the paths of the sign and of lines.
There could not be a better place for such a journey than a library, the king of sites for “written communication”, the ultimate site for the conservation of the thoughts and emotions stored over the centuries making them stable and everlasting. This has been possible thanks to a variety of instruments beginning with a stylus and quill feather followed by a pencil, nib and pen to end up with a typewriter and computer, taking us across several historical periods from writing as a form of art, to the Gutenberg press and straight through to the Web universe.
In this setting the nib has reigned supreme for over a century. It has been made in many different shapes and sizes according to the use which it was designed for. It has always been accompanied by the inseparable inkwell and is still today the leader for creating refined forms of art as in the works by Cavazzon. And it is by their very artistic value that these cultural gems and gems of beauty have become part of the most important and priceless artistic and historical patrimonies of the world.


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