Book portrays multiplicity of the Italian count who lived and died in Amazonia
Collection of texts illustrates the various profiles and performances of Ermanno Stradelli, who played a delicate role of interpreter and revealer of the indigenous Amazonian cultures in the 19th and 20th centuries
An Italian Count goes to Amazonia because of his curiosity and becomes a keen photographer, ethnographer, collector, dictionarist, translator, myth researcher, geographer, even a jurist. Such a film-worthy screenplay has Ermanno Stradelli as the main character, who crossed the Atlantic with his numerous refined practices of European worship to get immersed in the passionate and sinuous depths of the Amazonia rainforest in 1879. To honor the 90th anniversary of his death, Editora Unesp is launching, supported by Istituto Italiano di Cultura of São Paulo, The Only Possible Life: itineraries of Ermanno Stradelli in Amazonia [A única vida possível: itinerários de Ermanno Stradelli na Amazônia], organized by the researcher Livia Raponi, consisting of essays of Brazilian and Italian specialists from different areas.
One of the most emblematic characters of the Italian-Brazilian scientific world of the last century – standing between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – Stradelli studied and recorded in photos, maps and dictionaries the indigenous people, languages and geography of Amazonia. This work enabled Brazilians and Italians to know the peculiarities of the region. The Count was commited to getting in touch with the indigenous cultures of the Upper Rio Negro and to disseminate their original expressions, becoming an indispensable reference for anthropology, languages and Amerindian literature researchers.
The book also has a selection of photographs and maps made by the traveler from archives of the Italian Geographic Society. Moved by the space of seduction in which two worlds are traversed and reinvented, it illustrates the various profiles and multiple actions of Stradelli in different disciplines. This heterogeneity enables a consistent and multi-dimensional portrait of the Count, stimulating more voices, narrations, memories, and representations, so a more vivid painting can emerge from the crossed worlds experienced by this unique figure.
About the organizer
Livia Raponi holds a full degree in Political and Social Sciences from University of Florence, a degree in Cultural Mediation from the University of Rome La Sapienza, and a Master’s degree in Economics from University of Rome Tor Vergata. She was the curator of the exhibition The Amazon of Ermanno Stradelli. Rivers, people and legends under the eyes of an Italian explorer, presented in 2013 in São Paulo, Manaus and Rome. She is currently developing a research project on Ermanno Stradelli with the FFLCH-USP Italian Language and Literature school. She is a cultural attaché of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy and vice-director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of São Paulo.
Title: The Only Possible Life: Itineraries of Ermanno Stradelli in Amazonia [A única vida possível: itinerários de Ermanno Stradelli na Amazônia]
Organizer: Livia Raponi
Number of pages: 256 + photobook
Format: 16 x 23 cm
ISBN: 978-85-393-0645-9
Rights: worldwide free