Exhibition “Sempre allegri, Bambini!”

Lothar Meggendorfer and the Movable Book in Italy between the 19th and the 20th century

Movable Books and Picture Books in Italy between the 19th and the 20th Century
The unique movable picture books by Luisa Terzi for Paola Lombroso Carrara (“Zia Mariù / Aunt Mariù”), 1913–1917

A unique case in the history of Italian movable books is represented by the four unique-copy animated artifacts created by Luisa Terzi between 1913 and 1917. The author, a young schoolteacher from Florence, conceived them on the basis of four of the best-known children’s books by Paola Lombroso Carrara, the well-known writer who in 1908 created the children’s magazine «Corriere dei Piccoli» and launched the “Bibliotechine Scolastiche” (“little school libraries” project), with the aim of supplying books to under-resourced schools throughout Italy. The initiative directly involved children, who coloured in and sold postcards that Zia Mariù had illustrated by leading artists such as Attilio Mussino, as well as by young collaborators, including Luisella Terzi herself.

Presented to great acclaim in 1917 at the National Toy Exhibition in Venice, these albums also won the admiration of Gabriele D’Annunzio. After decades during which their whereabouts were unknown, they resurfaced thanks to the donation of the Paola Lombroso Carrara Collection to our Fondazione in 2014. Since 2019 they have been the focus of a project of enhancement and restoration, in collaboration with the Centro Conservazione Restauro “La Venaria Reale”.

On display here, together with the other two already exhibited in the past, is the album newly restored this year, inspired by the volume Storie vere di Zia Mariú (Bemporad, 1913), with illustrations by Bona Gigliucci depicting Paola’s family life with her son Chicchi: images of great poetic intensity that Luisella Terzi sets in motion using her customary system of levers, adding a few special effects such as a balloon and a kite attached to a metal wire, floating in the sky.