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Since I don't feel capable of writing an exhaustive review of such a vast and demanding work, and since I am proud to be a friend of its editor and of many of its co-authors, I feel I am a somewhat biased reader. For this reason I have agreed to write some reflections on this Trattato, without laying any claims to writing a review. In this way I feel in tune with that personal style which is open to ambivalences and contradictions - preferably conscious ones - and which are a feature of our work and a cornerstone of Semi's programme.
Therefore I will not even attempt to construct an organic critique, but, as I see fit, I will allow myself to be guided by my impressions as someone who works in the field but does not consider himself particularly erudite.
At first sight the cover of the book is very pleasing to the eye. On closer inspection it does not seem so good. The title seems to be brown (manifest colour) deriving from the combination of blood-red (latent) with the light blue of the background. In the middle there is an illustration containing many enigmas: a depiction of Oedipus and the Sphynx in the art nouveau style, a somewhat pre-Oedipal art, a Greek inscription written in capital letters, but so small that one needs a magnifying glass to read it, and all around in relief there are six spirals (alas!) or rather spiral cross-sections of ammonites. Apart from Quino, designers have yet to find a way of illustrating our subject. Instead of fossils, in the frontispiece I would have preferred to see the title underpined by two solid columns of names: the name of the editor together with those of the authors. I imagine that the design would have looked different: then content would have been more important than appearance. Does psychoanalysis really need to be dressed by a stylist? I prefer it naked.
I wish to make clear that apart from the historic publication by Boringhieri, I believe that the best of Italian psychoanalysis has been