Gioppino in cerca di fortuna

“Gioppino in search of fortune. Theatre in verse. Eight colour pictures. Movable characters”, Treves, Milan, s.d. (1890) is a rare and extraordinary example of an Italian animated book.
It is the first leveraged book produced in Italy, with eight animated plates in coloured lithography. The accurate and humorous drawings, by an unidentified artist, are linked to the imagery of the Bergamasque mask and take up an iconographic model widespread throughout Europe from the mid-19th century. The leverage mechanism is relatively complex, with three pivot points and rotating effects. Probably, this publication represents an original response by the publisher Treves to the very strong competition in those years among the Milanese publishers most attentive to illustration and early childhood such as Hoepli and Vallardi, who however limited themselves to importing copies from abroad.
This new paperback edition, published on the occasion of the homonymous exhibition curated by Fondazione Benedetto Ravasio / Museo del Burattino di Bergamo, reproduces the original plates in a new leporello format, without levers. It also contains a critical contribution by Pompeo Vagliani (Fondazione Tancredi di Barolo, Turin).