La scimmietta nuda

The littke naked ape

A very special project: a children’s book created with Desmond Morris, for which Bompiani has world rights.

Throughout history, humans have built cities, painted masterpieces, composed wonderful music and poetry, and invented machines that allowed them to fly in the sky. And yet deep down they have never stopped being some kind of furless ape.

We are a bit nude compared to chimpanzees, orangutans, or gorillas, who are our closest relatives. We are naked apes, in fact.

At birth, a human baby and a baby monkey are different in appearance but share an impressive number of gestures, attitudes, and abilities.

Over time, the human baby begins to develop more varied and complex abilities and behaviors. We are very proud of our intellectual abilities, and in fact we call ourselves Sapiens, or the wise ones.

Yet it is best to remember that inside every wise human there is a legacy, and an animal spirit: inside of us a little monkey lives on. Every now and then it peeps out and reminds us where we come from, and what we were before we became what we are now.