In the afternoon of Saturday 18 May in Saint-Vincent Gianni Pasqua, "Roxy", will present his lecture on the "History of Magic".

Gianni lives and works in Turin. Since he was 7 he's been actively involved in Magic with the stage name of "Roxy" and in 1971 he founded the Circolo Amici della Magia di Torino together with other magic lovers, directing its activities for 35 years.

With his magic acts and his lectures, Gianni performed at the most important conventions on magic around the world and also at the world's magic temple, The Magic Castle; he has authored more than 20 publications on magic, has written numerous articles for various international magazines. He collects and studies ancient books on magic. His library contains about 3,000 volumes starting from the year 1500. Currently, he's busy with researches on the history of magic. His last lecture on Lightning Calculators has been presented to the Tenth Los Angeles Conference on Magic History, the most important convention on magic history's research, held every two years in the United States. The convention is by invitation only, and Gianni is the only Italian to have been lecturing on the results of his studies since the first edition in 1989. Among his lectures we can mention: Searching for the Secrets of Magic (Kansas City), Charlatanism in the Age of Reason (The University of Queensland), Rare Tricks performed in Middle Age, Renaissance & Age of Reason (Paris, Washington), Magic Literature in Italy during the XVIII Century (Berlin), The Water Spouters (Italy). His researches, on old non-magic books, brought him to discover important references to dates and performances of magic tricks like: faked knife with retractable blade (XIII century B.C.), belly opened, guts removed and then all restored (XIII century B.C.), mnemotechnic performances (V century B.C.), trick of the head cut and re-attached to the body (XIII century), experiment of an incombustible man who can get into an oven and exit unscathed after having cooked a loaf of bread held in his hand (XVI century), and to find a living relative of Abramo Colorni, the more creative and respected magician of th XVI century.