Notwithstanding the whimsicalities introduced by the use of TV serials, the Italians continue to favor giving their children those traditional names (or at least that has been done for long decades till our days). In that way, it is shown in the registry of birth that the male name holds the record as the old and good name "Joseph," given certainly on the basis of a reference to the discreet and silent figure of the namesake legal father of Jesus.

Every year on March 19, we celebrate the solemnity of St. Joseph, through the traditional picture that we have of him could be more perplexing. "Poor Joseph painted like an old, secondary carpenter! But the holy picture does not correspond to the truth, and to the traditional 'guardian' of the Holy Family..."

In this little book, we have thought of reflecting on the evangelical figure of Joseph, by recalling the traits and deepening some themes and symbols that spontaneously emerge from the examination of his story. With an eye to the biblical universe and another to the cultural traces that through the centuries have received and translated him, we will speak therefore of the silent and discreet figure of the guardian of the Redeemer, of the embarrassing question of "brothers" and "sisters" of Jesus, of the adventure of a Holy Family that we will see as refugee in Egypt and of the flamboyant creativity of the apocryphal stories that surround it.

(From the back cover)