Claudia Mongini, working between science and art, tells a story that is secret but at the same time known by everybody: the often contested female presence in the sphere of modern science. In times in which women were still banned from academies, many were the personalities who were able to break the blockage imposed by culture, religion and society, and to enrich scientific research with important discoveries. The book of forgotten scientists throws, page after page, a light on peculiar and innovative lives. It is the case of Ada Lovelace, Byron´s daughter, who conceived the computer in times in which the machine was not yet realizable, or of Sofja Kovalevskaja, friend of Dostoevskij and Weierstrass, one of the first female mathematics professors who, beneath her scientific activity, always found time to dedicate to the cause of the freedom of thought and to narrative writing. Blanche Wittmann then - whom the Swedish author Per Olov Enquist dedicated a spendid novel, The book about Blanche and Marie – was for long time a “professional hysteric” in the demonstrations held in the parisian clinique directed by Charcot, before becoming Marie Curie´s assistant and sacrificing her body for radium research. Atrium shows a glimpse into a fascinating world, a lost atlas of ideas, introduced by the science journalist and writer Stefania Maurizi.

Luca Scarlini