• Book

    • Einstein’s Piano
      • Overview
      • About the author
      • Press
    • Marco Ciardi      Antonella Gasperini     

      Einstein’s Piano

      Lives and Stories in the Balance between Florence, Europe and America

      • Overview
      • About the author
      • Press

      Overview

      The unpublished story of the piano given by Einstein to his sister Maja in 1931, against the backdrop of Fascist Italy.

      If objects could talk, imagine how many stories they could tell: the stories of the people they belonged to, but also the stories of the times they lived in. The story of Einstein’s piano, which passed into the hands of painter Hans Joachim Staude and is now kept at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, is studded with events that were sometimes wonderful, sometimes tragic, but never trivial. Its adventures played out alongside the lives of many men and women who had to face daily and epochal challenges, the common thread being music. Music bound their lives together in the decade in which racial laws were passed.

      Through sources and images, the book retraces the relationship between Einstein and Italy and especially Florence, investigating the history of Italy during the Fascist period in relation to music, art and culture, but also the Jewish question, the war, and emigration to the United States.

      About the author

      Marco Ciardi teaches History of Science and Techniques at the University of Bologna. He is the author of over 200 publications in Italy and abroad. His publications for Hoepli are Marie Curie (2017) and Il segreto degli elementi (2019).

      Florence-native Antonella Gasperini is head of the Library and Museum Service at the National Institute of Astrophysics. She is involved in many initiatives and projects for the preservation and promotion of Italy’s historical astronomical heritage.

  • Book formats

    • Binding: Paperback
      Size: 15 x 23
      Print: Black and white
      Pages: XXII-266
      ISBN: 9788820399924
      Price: € 22,90

    Digital formats

    • epub
      ISBN: 9788820399931
      Price: € 18,99
    • Piattaforma: Amazon
      kindle
      ISBN: 9788820399931
    • Piattaforma in abbonamento: Perlego