Interesting meeting the one with the author Fabrizio Ciocchetti in Umbertide f
Born at the beginning of 1800 in Perugia, Bartoli lived just 60 years. Years plenty of events, this man was an eclectic one who reminded me, while the various orators illustrated the character of Bartoli at that people who lived during and before the Renaissance in grade of spacing in different areas of knowledge.
Bartoli passed at the history becoming famous once dead because...Forgotten and re-discovered by the author of Umbertide. There are not names of streets dedicated to him.
Nothing.
Journalist (the profession was pretty different; just few people read and what they read were mainly essays) and writer as well he tried to write a history of Perugia, starting from the Middle-Age. A monumental project dead after the publication of the first book. We don't know why; maybe because of a lack of time, maybe because it would have taken too much energy or just because Bartoli had many other more important projects in his mind. I wouldn't be surprised of it.
Catholic, for all his life experienced this rivality with Bonazzi, another historic character and writer, biographer of Perugia, this one very well known; the second was anti-clearical, a character of left.
But...The most remarkable idea Bartoli had in his life was to trying to change the devastating situation of Perugia and areas close to the city in terms of education. At the beginning of 1800 the city counted just 12.000 people but only 5.000 had a decent scholarization. For the rest people were not in grade of reading and writing. The genial idea of Bartoli was this one: creating a series of schools for students and adults with the desire of continuing their studies, where and if in the past they could not have attended any sort of school because too poor, because also if pretty little they needed to work in the fields or in the farms of their parents. It was a big success. While Fabrizio illustrated this part of the story I thought at my dad and at that scholastic sessions attended during the evenings for having a piece of paper, because the war had destroyed everything, school included and I thought that maybe we should thank Bartoli for this idea.
I also thought that it's up to people of culture the transmission of knowledge. Sorry, but to me it couldn't be different, although Italy still live a sort of snobish behavior that don't pay. If books is not found in a house it's extremely difficult that people will search for it. That's why it's important sharing and the creation of cultural sites. Men like Bartoli a real blessing.
To me what Bartoli did was absolutely normal; if the establishment of that moment didn't want to better the cultural situation of the territory was symptoms that ignorance was preferred to knowledge because more comfy for the elite.
The author and other people were so surprised that a man of law, a teacher at the university did something like it: teaching to poor people was seen as surprising, maybe for the distance existing in terms of social classes, and because this act "read" by them as "inferior" to the social condition of that man: nothing is more beauty than finding a man in grade of sharing his knowledge, not closed in a pedestal but available for everyone. Sharing culture is the best thing to do. People of culture can't never know what happen if they plant in the mind of people seeds of culture but surely something extremely positive.
Higly recommended book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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