Roberto Giacobbo's high popularization of science--could you have guessed it?

“We chose not to present a particular title but to focus on high science popularization. For this we will have a meeting with Roberto Giacobbo on Saturday.” Did I read that correctly? At the same time the terms “high popularization of science” and “Roberto Giacobbo”? It would be a bit like saying “quality music” and “Gigi D’Alessio”: I do not exclude that there is someone who might think of “cuando esta noche tramonta el sol mon amour” as a phrase from an anthology of art music, but I am not inclined to think that this someone could hold a role of the slightest importance in an entity that deals with music or culture. Just as I am not inclined to think that to juxtapose Roberto Giacobbo with “high popularization of science” is someone who might hold a role of the slightest importance in a company or institution concerned with culture. Or publishing.

Yes, that Roberto Giacobbo: the one who murdered our gonads with prophecies about the end of the world in 2012 (and from Dec. 22, 2012 onward I wished that at the very least he would change his profession, but never was that wish more futile), the same Giacobbo who used to keep Matteo Renzi company in the search for Leonardo da Vinci’s lost Battle of Anghiari, the same Giacobbo who wondered in his TV show, Voyager, if Elvis Presley was still alive (or, in a nice musical-metaphysical exchange, if Paul McCartney was dead), passing by the ever-present crop circles, the never-expected UFOs, and so on with all the most banal sci-fi legends (let’s hope they end sooner or later!) in the presence of which even the chocolatier marmots of a famous advertisement of a few years ago seemed more believable to me.

Thus, finding the sentence with which I opened the post quoted in a tweet read absent-mindedly, the last thing one could think of was that the “Giacobbo-high disclosure” combination came from publishing circles, but not from lowbrow publishing (after all, Giacobbo even published a book with prophecies about 2012, after all, they have even had books published by the “usual idiots” and Balotelli, so it comes to mind that nowadays it is enough to have a minimum of celebrity, in various capacities, in order to have access to the upper echelons of contemporary literature, then the quality of the product can be overlooked), but rather of publishing that should be of quality.

Premise: Friday will open in Pisa the 2013 edition of the Pisa Book Festival, one of the most important events in Italy dedicated to the world of publishing. It is always an interesting opportunity to discover novelties, meet authors, and participate in quality meetings. An article published in the Pisa edition of the Tirreno newspaper today, Sunday, November 10, presented the Pisan publishers who will be involved in the festival: among these publishers is the publishing house with the high-sounding name Pisa University Press, i.e. the publishing house connected to the University of Pisa (Anglo-Saxon world university style, to be clear).

In this article, the journalist interviews Dr. Claudia Napolitano, the “marketing manager” and “press office” of the publishing house, according to its website: well, it is Dr. Napolitano who is the author of the fateful juxtaposition between “high popularization of science” and “Roberto Giacobbo.” Don’t believe it? Click here to read the article where you will find the quote.

Now I say: in a country where the aforementioned Matteo Renzi is considered the “change,” where Fabio Volo and Benedetta Parodi dominate the charts of best-selling books, where the best-selling records instead include Emma Marrone and Modà, where one thinks, when one asks the name of an art historian, of Vittorio Sgarbi (and no one else but him), where Giuseppe Cruciani and Bruno Vespa hold the membership of the journalists’ association, I may well be okay with Roberto Giacobbo being considered a high popularizer of science. In fact, I’m probably even okay with it. The point is that from a publishing house that “was founded with the aim of enhancing, from an editorial point of view, the wide and multifaceted cultural production of the University and the Pisan territory” (as it says on the website www.pisauniversitypress.it) I would expect a little more, but just a little, just enough to make sure that the name of the university in which I studied and graduated is not associated with characters who do not enjoy the slightest credibility in the scientific world.

Those same characters who, moreover, day after day, sink the already too much abused subject of art history, and those same characters that I, my collaborators here at Windows on Art, and so many of our other friends who do, like us, serious popularization, try to fight through quality, rigorous content that draws on serious scientific studies and tries to make them accessible to the general public. Dr. Napolitano (I don’t know if you will ever read this post, I don’t think so, but in case I am addressing you directly): Windows on Art is a project that was born four years ago in your own university, started from an idea of students from your university. A project that has been making the quality of dissemination one of its main goals for the past four years (the other main goal is to bring our listeners, readers and fans to see live works of art). And like ours there are other interesting projects that have sprung from the minds of students or former students of the University of Pisa. Have you ever thought, therefore, of looking at home before looking elsewhere, your models of “high disclosure”? I confess to you that your statement and your event represent perhaps not a defeat but certainly a good slap in the face for those who, like me and many other friends, do serious popularization without having to resort to ridiculous mysteries or insulting sensationalism (knowledge, but serious knowledge, is in itself a sensational adventure). Too bad at this point we do not have Giacobbo’s notoriety, if it is celebrity that makes “high” disclosure. If so we will try to get a program on television. Then if we have to pass off Leonardo da Vinci as the member of an obscure sect guarding the secret of the Holy Grail, patience: at least on our site we will try to continue serious popularization. With best wishes for a successful event: if it goes well, maybe next year we can invite Fabio Volo to give a lectio magistralis at Palazzo Ricci.

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.