Wow! You guys have been busy, it's taken me an hour just to catch up on all your comments. I hate to interrupt the flow with a blog but perhaps you can continue here or on the previous blog?
I'm back after a delightful week in sunny Spain, and among the emails awaiting me, I received an interesting one from an Italian documentary maker, who wishes to produce a film about Johann Bessler.
They say that they would use me as the main narrator (God help them!) and intend to film in the Trivulziana Library of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. Interestingly for me, somebody on the Bessler forum kindly brough to my attention the existence of another copy of Das Triumphirende which is held at that this particular library. I was able to obtain high definition copies of their portraits from the library. This is the only other example that I'm aware of which includes the double portraits with the hole in one as did my own copy, which I used to have but which I passed on to another, safer pair of hands.
I assume (at this early stage I have no details) that if we are to film in this famous library, that I shall be able to see and examine this copy and I am delighted at the prospect.
The company, FarmStudioFactory, are an Italian film and television production company, but appear to make films for other people so it will be interesting to try to get some background on this to see where the idea originated. I scraped up a few details on the library as I was so interested in it and this is what I found:-
"Along with the Cathedral - Milan's most famous and much beloved monument - the big Castle is linked to the vicissitudes and dramatic events that the city has experienced over the past centuries. For many years, in fact, it has represented a symbol of the power in the hands of the Dukes, as well as of the foreign dominators. Only at the beginning of the 20th century the Castle assumed its distinctive role, becoming a place of culture, which hosted numerous Lombard art collections. The Castle was named after Francesco Sforza, who transformed it into a ducal residence in 1450. But its origins date back to the second half of the 14th century, at the time of Galeazzo II Visconti.
Hosted inside the Castello Sforzesco is the revered Trivulziana Library. The library can be accessed to examine parchments, documents, records and prints. The Historic Archive preserves all the acts of the Municipality of Milan and of the Duchy dating back as far as 1385."I also would like to know the history, the provenance, of this particular copy of the Das Tri and how it came to reside in Italy. I have always believed that the other countries of Europe might hold some further accounts of Johann Bessler and it seems to me that a documentary about him could engage the attention of the right people to bring such information to the surface.
I'll tell you more when I know more. I should not get too excited as this kind of thing has happened to me before, more than once, and the project has always gone out like a damp squib!
JC
