2013: XV
Articles

Il rovescio del Sistema: i nomi nelle Storie naturali di Primo Levi

Abstract

In the Natural Histories by Levi/Malabaila, some nomenclatures seemto be included in the verso of his Periodic Table. The para-scientific names of many definitions, together with the topics, are a parody of another Nature and another Science that could have been, but was not. Levi proceeds on a double level: on the one hand, in the Table, the names of the elements discovered “in nature” reveals chemical links which are also cultural links to human characters and “natures” plunged in history. On the other hand, in the Histories, we find creatures that always appeare conceivable in human mythology: what a god’s imagination might have created, had he/she wanted to.