By Fiorella Basso

Yesterday Mauro Zennaro lectured to us about the history of lettering, took us for a tour of churches, obelisks and plazas.

It’s great to be taught history (and have all your questions answered) by a real Roman native.

The best part of the day was when we visited the Biblioteca Angelica, the first public library in Europe (although British and Italians are still debating over who has the first one). In this beautiful setting we had the chance to see and actually touch, original hand written books from the 15th and 17th century. Among them were Bodoni’s Typographic Manual, published by his widow after his death, and Dante’s Divine Comedy with its beautiful illuminations made with gold paper.