#2 Notebook - Reading the Archive

Every archive contains unanswered questions.

Some are hidden in a forgotten photograph. Others emerge only when a drawing is placed next to a finished object decades later. Sometimes a single handwritten note changes the interpretation of an entire series.

Research rarely begins with certainty.

More often, it begins with curiosity.

An archive should always be read as a whole.

Creative sketches reveal the first ideas behind an object. Technical drawings record dimensions, materials and production instructions. Prototypes, trials, discarded pieces, murrine samples and colour tests document the process of experimentation that precedes the finished work.

Numbered drawings, catalogues, photographs and sales material show how these objects entered production and were presented to clients. Administrative records provide dates, names, roles and the structure of the company itself. Personal photographs, letters, notebooks and family documents add another layer, revealing the people, relationships and circumstances that shaped the history of the manufactory.

Each group of documents answers different questions.

Read separately, they offer only fragments.

Read together, they allow a more complete reconstruction of Fratelli Toso's history.

Back to the Roots presents the archive in this way: not as a collection of individual documents, but as a connected body of evidence, where every relationship contributes to a deeper understanding of the company's history.