Fernando Melani (Pistoia 1907-1985) was an artist whose studies led to elaborations that oscillated between science, art, writing, philosophy, computer science and photography. After the Second World War, Melani totally revised his lifestyle with the conviction that he had to move away from instincts. He recalibrated his emotions, needs and affections by putting the objectivity of scientific reality before them, in order to identify the truth and essence of things. In this process of limiting 'superficiality', he developed a new model of contemporary, atheistic hermetic life in which he abandoned all his clothes (replacing them with only a blue suit) and reorganised his living spaces. He transformed the big house into a creative laboratory in which atoms were free to roam through space. To do this, he used only one small room as a bedroom and eliminated all domestic accessories (including the kitchen). These choices - which led some art historians to describe him as a 'manipulator of particles or charmer of atoms' - also affected his emotional sphere, leading him to a partial form of misanthropy. The artist's aim was to diminish his own individual and subjective essence in order to catalyse the outside as much as possible, becoming a resonant instrument of absolute objectivity. All these aspects of the annulment of subjectivity gave rise to a constant elaboration that is reflected in his archive, preserved in Pistoia. Of particular interest are some series and types of documents such as: conceptual maps, diagrams, tables, word games and artistic projects. The paper would like to present this interesting case study in order to illustrate how the attempts to reach an objective emotionality have generated, as a direct consequence, peculiar archival typologies of great interest in terms of production, description and preservation.

Lorenzo Sergi is a PhD student at the Department of Humanities, Languages and Cultural Heritage of the University of Cagliari and is currently doing a period abroad as a visiting researcher at the Departament de Biblioteconomia, Documentació i Comunicació Audiovisual of the Universitat de Barcelona. From 2013 onwards he completed a three-year degree in Operator of cultural heritage - historical and artistic sector, a master's degree in archival sciences and a two-year second level master's degree in contemporary archiving. He also obtained a certificate from the School of Archival, Palaeography and Diplomatics at the State Archive of Florence. He has been a research fellow at the Historical Archives of the University of Florence and has participated in several projects for the reorganisation and description of public and private archives. He is a member of the Italian National Archival Association (ANAI) and is also a member of other local and national associations. He has participated in national and international research projects and conferences. His research interests mainly concern: contemporary archives of the 19th and 20th centuries, mainly university, municipal and private archives; analysis and study of regular ecclesiastical archives (particularly between the 18th and 20th centuries) seen from various perspectives; consequences and methods of dispersion and destruction of documentary material. On these topics he has published monographs (as author, co-author or editor) and contributions in books, journals and conference proceedings.