This is probably the first time that I've had the opportunity to read a book written by a diver about his adventures under the waves without getting bored. Texts like this one are usually all the same: tediously rhetorical, often badly written, and perfectly boastful. This is why I said "no" to the umpteenth request to write "a couple of lines" as a preface to a book, the book that you are reading at the moment. However, the author's insistence was charming rather than suffocating, and so I said that I'd read a few pages (...) I felt amazed as a reader to find such unusual words as "bailer" in front of me (...) Bignami isn't just a good writer, but someone who's got a real feel for firing up the reader, adding a good dose of humour to specifics of his fields... Folco Quilici