THE STATIONERY OF THE UNAVAILABLE

There is a place in Ferrara where not only apparent chaos re-emerge unthinkable relics for today’s digital and almost immaterial world.
On the eve of the reopening of the schools you can enter the Social Stationery to hunt for diaries, tickets, pens, crayons and notebooks and you will be easily satisfied. The same goes for the books on the history of the city. But if on entering someone ever dared to ask for ink for nibs and piston fountain pens, he would be equally satisfied.
Anita Stocchetti inherited from her father Antonio the shop run by her family since 1927, but founded in 1881. Her maternal grandmother Oleria ‘Berta’ Marzola worked there as a shop assistant already at the end of the nineteenth century under her previous ownership. Then, in addition to Antonio, clerk and expert repairer of pens, there was his brother Angelo to deal with the sale of books, as well as for a certain period Beppino Tibertelli, brother of the painter Filippo De Pisis.
Opened under the archiepiscopal palace, then moved in 1908, and then again in the thirties but always in the current course Martiri della Libertà (finally at n ° 53), since 2014 the Sociale has lived a stone’s throw from the Estense Castle in Piazza della Repubblica .
However, the signs of her long history are not only in the memorabilia, even off the market, that she is able to offer: from 1889 it is the National brand brass case that dominates Anita and was in operation until the introduction of fiscal registers; the white counter carved in floral style by Ugo Rossetti dates back to the end of the 19th / early 20th century and rediscovered a few years ago under the dark wood with which it was covered in the 1930s, together with the shelves still present today.
The treasure hunt for those who, curious or passionate, accepts the challenge of getting lost in the Social is always open.

Text & Photos by FERRARA LOVELY PLANET