In her novel Amiche per la pelle, Indian-Italian writer Laila Wadia tells the stories of four immigrant women as they learn Italian in Trieste. Wadia uses space to define the characters' marginality, and to describe their journey as they seek integration into society. The depiction of space is also employed by Wadia to hint at the potential for the literature of migration in Italian to become an integral part of Italian literature. The article analyzes the learning experience of the four women within the sociolinguistic framework of the community of practice. The acquisition of sociolinguistic competence allows the apprentice in the community of practice to move from a peripheral, marginal position to a more central one. According to the author, Wadia points to a possible and desirable future when migrants find a central space and gain full membership in the community of practice of their adopted country through mutual engagement and shared goals, just as literature of migration in Italian will one day find legitimate inclusion in the Italian literary patrimony.

In 1661, the Congregation of the Gentlemen of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, a lay pious organization devoted to religious and charitable services in Tivoli, Italy, commissioned from land surveyor Gismondo Stracha an illustrated cabreo of its endowments. Cabrei were private estate records, frequently commissioned by large estate owners in Europe between the fifteenth and the nineteenth century. Illustrated cabrei, such as this one from Tivoli, were elegantly decorated and included watercolour maps and drawings of lands, vegetation, and buildings. They could indeed be works of art, perceived by the landowners not only as administrative documents, but also as artistic testimonies of the commissioners’ legacy in the territory. The private cadastral maps included in illustrated cabrei predate the implementation of land surveying and mapping in the national land registration systems in Europe in the mid-eighteenth century. Unlike public cadastral records, the maps in cabrei combine geometric accuracy with artistic flair and are accompanied by extensive annotations and regular updates to facilitate the management of the estate. The cabreo of the Congregation of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary is therefore invaluable in documenting the evolution of landscape, economy, cartography, and social life in Tivoli throughout the centuries.