Pagine del Garda Book Fair Showcases Lake Garda’s History and Culture
Over a thousand titles from about a hundred publishers, institutions, and associations from six provinces. A book fair hosted in the banquet hall of the Casinò Arcense, which will conclude on Sunday, is gaining notable public success and attracting significant interest from the cultural sector—not only from the Benaco basin and its surrounding hinterlands but also from nearby valleys of Trentino and Brescia, as well as from the Morenic hills of Verona and Mantua.
Promoted by the cultural association «Il Sommolago» and made possible through the synergy between public and private entities, «Pagine del Garda» marks the ninth edition, following important events in recent days. It features two remarkable editorial works: tomorrow afternoon at 4 PM, «Il lago di Garda» (The Lake of Garda), a volume written by some of the leading scholars of the Garda area who aimed to consolidate in these pages the knowledge accumulated over time.
The volume and its publication
A 450-page volume, “which features exceptional iconographic documentation, consisting of cartographies and archival documents of rare beauty and great hermeneutic effectiveness, as well as photographs and specially created iconographic apparatus”. The work — curated by Ugo Sauro, Carlo Simoni, Eugenio Turri, Gianmaria Varanini and published by Cierre Edizioni of Sommacampagna, in collaboration with the Department of Geography at the University of Padua — aims to offer “a new perspective on Lake Garda, considering it as a unified space in which various forces (political, economic, cultural) have operated, historically and geographically diverse, although all influenced by the lacuality of the Garda territory”.
Characteristics and themes covered
Garda seen “as one of many regional or micro-regional spaces in which Europe is articulated, albeit with its wealth of stories and highly specific man-nature relationships rooted in local and regional history”. The reasons behind “its physical condition, i.e., the lake as a hydraulic machine and a structural geological basin, which is the primary motivation for every human articulation; and the historical reasons that over the centuries have woven a dense network of settlements and human activities around the lake (from fishing to tourism, etc.)” are described.
Not least, the exploration of “the developments of the Garda idea, the Garda myth, from its origins (Catullian) to the present day, within the framework of contemporary Italy and, not secondarily, Europe, where Garda integrates as an area of strong economic significance and original developments”. The book will be introduced by Gino Tomasi and Franco de Battaglia.
Conclusions and other events
«Pagine del Garda» will close on Sunday with the presentation at 4 PM by Luciano Bonuzzi and Francesco Marchioro of Martin Freud’s book «Mio padre Sigmund Freud» (My Father Sigmund Freud). The exhibition of the book, hosted in Arcense since last Saturday with the presentation of an investigative work by Archbishop Luigi Bressan of Trento on events that impacted all the inhabited centers of the Upper Garda area following the French invasion of Trentino in 1703.
Today, Friday, the fair is open from 9:30 AM to 12:00 PM and from 3:00 PM to 6:30 PM; tomorrow and Sunday from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM and from 2:00 PM to 7:00 PM.
