Catalog Level
Items (Cataloging Focus)

Title Proper/Title Text
Guida Rimborsabile Tricolore di Torino e dell'Esposizione del 1911

Date of Publication/Creation Date
[1911]

Place of Publication/Creation Place
Milan

Pages
240 pages, 1 map

Inscription Language
French (Language), Italian (Language)

Descriptive Note Text

As suggested by its name, the Guida Tricolore is divided into three sections. The "green" section provides a descriptive itinerary through commercial and artistic Turin. The "white" section consists of a guide to the Exposition. The "red" section includes practical information on public transportation, and museum fees and schedules. It also offers discount coupons for restaurants, theatres, museums, and various events. The guide is bilingual: Italian and French. The "green" section of the Guida Tricolore provides a series of itineraries along the main boulevards, piazzas, and streets of Turin. The departure point is always the main train station (Stazione Centrale) and the itineraries always include the various entrances to the Exposition, thus creating an implicit connection between the city's main access point and the spaces of the 1911 World's Fair. The first itinerary, for example, starts off at the train station, follows Viale Vittorio Emanuele II to the main entrance of the Fair, near Ponte Umberto I. This part of the Guida emphasizes the length and width of the city's boulevards, the size of its squares, and the grandeur of its monumental buildings, thus conveying an impression of majesty and magnitude. The narrative also drew attention to the rationality of the city's design, pointing out that its central spaces convey "un'aria di finitezza che rivela subito come essa sia stata costruita interamente sulla linea di un disegno." Majesty and rationality of design are not the only feature that this section of the guide emphasizes. The descriptive itineraries also point out the variety and vitality of the economic, cultural, and social life in this vibrant city, with reference to the commercial buildings, businesses, schools, theatres, movie theatres, restaurants, banks, and hospitals that one can see while walking along the city's main streets. Combined with descriptions of palaces, churches, monuments, art works, and ancient sites (such as the Porta Palatina) the guide conveys the idea of a seamless combination of ancient worth and modern energy, past glory and present progress, according to the rhetoric that marked all World's Fairs' discourses. The physical appearance of the fair is also meaningful. The Italian narrative is placed in the top half of the page, the French translation in the bottom half, and, along the margins of the page are advertisements and pictures. The pictures include sites and monuments described in the narrative. The advertisements create a parallel visual narrative devoted to industrial production and the display of commercial goods, and convey a sense of productivity and material progress.

Current Repository/Geographic Location
Biblioteca Civica Centrale Torino (Turin, Italy)

Current Repository Numbers
BCT-GB-0001