Piemonte [antikvár]

Piedmont is a closed region and, from some points, of view mysterious. Every attempt, albeit with due sobriety, to uncloak its peculiarities and the mixture of old and new that characterises it, is therefore a worthy enterprise and should be encouraged.In this new research into Piedmont and its history, the Region has thus decided to join forces with De Agostini publishers, who boast a long history in the field of geographical and scientific publications. The undertaking is intended partly to highlight the unusual harmony between still untouched natural landscapes and landscapes of the productive, vital urban kind. From agricultural to industrial production featuring leading-edge technology to handicrafts and artistic production. Piedmont gives a faithful, variegated, complex, comprehensive view of itself through the pages of this book. On the one hand. Piedmont figures among the most interesting regions and, on the other, one of the most reluctant to share its secrets with others. Its entire history has shown it to have an inclination towards both independence and towards transalpine and, broadly speaking, European relations at one and the same time.Piedmont's history thus keeps pace with that of the great European nations. It was not by chance that impetus for Italian Unity came from Piedmont, from the first Italian, subalpine, Parliament.The concept of a modern state, nurtured initially in neighbouring France by Richelieu and Louis XIV had also found fertile ground on this side of the Alps.Down the centuries Piedmont has deposited warrior, ecclesiastical, engineering and artistic sediments on its land. These have blended together into an unusual mixture with a varied geography in which it has perhaps been a more of a case of man adapting to nature than vice versa.Piedmont really is a 'world' to approach with caution and one that needs observing with particular attention before it is possible to understand its deepest and most significant aspects.This book, in its second reprint, while accepting the recommendation for a prudent and respectful approach is duly committed to 'photographing' a region that is growing and changing and that is looking forward to new goals without vain exhibitionism, in order to carry itself forward to the threshold of the second millennium, ready to take up all challenges of an unstoppable process of modernisation.With the sure, regular pace of an old gentleman of the mountains.Enrico NervianiGian Paolo BrizioASSESSORE AI BEN! CULTURALI E AMBIENTALIPRESIDENTE DELLADELLA REGIONE PIEMONTEREGIONE PIEMONTE