The library of the Miramare Castle reveals for the first time its treasure chest of books on botany, flowers, plants and gardens. The rich collection, steeped in the spirit of the 19th century, reflects in the living garden surrounding the castle. A creation at once natural, artificial and artistic, the garden of archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg and his consort Charlotte of Belgium embodies an ideal of perfection, beauty and relationship with nature. The botanical library is a garden on paper that guides along a path of dreams and meditations born in a cultivated, aristocratic salon of the 19th century. Text in English and Italian.

Beginning with the establishment of the first ghetto in Venice in 1516, then followed by that of Rome and other cities, the Jews had to measure themselves against this circumscribed and ambivalent place, which included them in the urban perimeter and at the same time isolated them. For almost three centuries this was the space in which the Jews cultivated their identity, on the one hand preserving the characteristics of a millenary culture, while on the other drawing from the world that opened up beyond that border: the constant relationship between the “inside” and the “outside” of the ghetto walls marks the life of the Jews on the long road to emancipation. The volume is dedicated to this complex and articulated reality, availing itself of a very rich critical apparatus in dealing from every angle - historical, artistic, sociological - with a highly current problem: the concepts of resilience, integration, comparison between cultures, aspiration to being the same while remaining different.