“On land, corals were offered to be shaped, besides jewelry and rosary beads, into buttons: a novelty that had already appeared in Italy in the 13th century. Another new fashion had caused the previous type of wide trousers, which were sometimes long up to the knees and other times to the ankles – just like our own pants – to disappear.

At sea, in the 13th century, the steering wheel was invented, mounted at the stern of the ship, and the compass was initially a small box made of boxwood. And in difficult times, it was not enough that the wrath of the immortal God thundered from the sky; it was necessary for the little man (when harshness allies with arrogance!) to thunder from the earth as well: human madness mimicked the inimitable lightning.

With the cities of the Middle Ages, always ready to make war, humanity had to reckon with another terrible invention, gunpowder, a mixture of charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur.”

These brief excerpts from Chiara Frugoni are just a small part of the many and unique texts that compose the first book in our series, which "deconstructs" the idea that many still wish to maintain about the Middle Ages. Reading the book, we will understand that this thousand-year period was not overwhelmed by "darkness." We will learn about the sources of things we still encounter today that were born in the Middle Ages: glasses, watermark paper, filigrees, and the first printers; Arabic numerals and zero, the date from the birth of Christ, banks, notaries, and even anesthesia!

We will reconnect with the names of musical notes, we will keep chess and playing cards for our leisure, and a cat for domestic companionship, as well as participate in the famous carnival. We will imagine the glass in the windows of houses and the lit fireplace. And as the author narrates, the Middle Ages makes us sit at the table and eat, with a fork, our beloved pasta, noodles, and vermicelli…”