История письма и чтения. Асафова Г.К. - 144 стр.

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meaning available to the vastest possible audience, affirming a common social

history of politics, philosophy and faith. The teachers of the Latin school passed on

orthodox precepts that implied an established “correct” and common reading but

also offered students the vaster and more personal humanist perspective. As for the

students, they eventually reacted by asserting their authority as individual readers

over every text.

PICTURE READING

One summer afternoon in 1978, a big parcel arrived in the offices of the

publisher Franco Maria Ricci in Milan, where I was working as foreign-language

editor. When we opened it we saw that it contained, instead of manuscript, a large

collection of illustrated pages depicting a number of strange objects. The

accompanying letter explained that the author, Luigi Serafini, had created an

encyclopaedia of an imaginary world. Serafini had also invented an alphabet

during two long years in a small apartment in Rome, which was meant to explain

the illustrations’ intricacies. Ricci published the work in two luxurious volumes

with a delighted introduction by Italo Calvino. They are one of the most curious

examples of an illustrated book I know. Made entirely of invented words and

pictures it must be read without the help of a common language, through for

which there are no meanings except those furnished by a willing and inventive

reader.

This is, of course, a brave exception. Most of the time, a sequence of signs

follows an established code, and only our ignorance of the code makes it

impossible for us to read it.

What would a Christian, looking upon the doors of St. Sabina in the mid-

fifth century, have read? The tree with which Moses sweetened the bitter waters of

Marah would have been recognized as the Cross, symbol of Christ Himself. The

spring, like Christ, was a fount of living water giving life to a Christian flock. An

unbeliever, however, not instructed in the Christian faith, would read the images on