This article reframes calligraphy not as a decorative variant of writing but as its original and most complete form, the one in which thought and body have not yet been separated. Starting from the Focillonian idea that the hand does not merely execute but thinks, the author interweaves a symbolic archaeology of the sign (the Christian Word, the Quranic word, the Kabbalistic letter), the great Eastern calligraphic traditions taken as theoretical mirrors and the “great caesura” of movable-type printing, of which algorithmic writing is now the extreme outcome. Within this framework calligraphy, and Italian cursive in particular with its discipline of the ductus, emerges as an epistemological reminder and a formative practice that preserves the bodily, identity-bearing trace of the writer. The closing section turns the reflection into a didactic proposal for primary education, in dialogue with Italy’s recent national curriculum guidelines.
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