CIECHI. — Scientifically, a blind person is understood to be an individual whose eyes are completely devoid of the sense of sight, that is, are not even capable of perceiving the mere difference between light and shadow.
Socially, the definition of blindness varies according to the country. In some, it is given in practical terms, such as the impossibility of walking without guidance along unfamiliar routes, or of counting fingers separated at a fixed distance (1 or 2 m.), or of performing work for which sight is essential. In the United States, an individual is defined as blind if he has visual acuity no greater than 20/200 in the better eye with corrective lenses, or greater than 20/200 but with such a limitation of the visual field that its widest diameter does not extend beyond an angle of 20 degrees. In Italy, visual acuity must not exceed one tenth in either eye, with the best possible and tolerated correction; those who, despite having more than 1/10 vision, have such limitations in the visual field that the excess portion of their visus cannot be fully utilized are also considered blind, as are those with alterations in the light sense or disturbances of the eye’s muscular balance.
In general, sight is regarded as indispensable to the performance of any normal activity, so that the ability of blind persons, demonstrated on numerous occasions, to practice a profession or trade is considered exceptional and attributed to special sensory compensations. In reality, every blind person who has no other physical or mental impairments can participate in the productive life of the community, provided that he has been suitably educated or re-educated.
The beginning of organized educational activity on behalf of the blind took place in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century, with the founding of the first institution intended for blind young people (1784), due to Valentin Haüy (1745–1822).
The first problem to be solved was that of learning, hence the need for a system of raised writing perceptible to the touch. Various systems were gradually experimented with, but the one universally accepted for its completeness and practicality is the system devised in 1829 BRASILE (v.). The Braille system is based on the various possible combinations of no more than six raised dots, each of which corresponds to a letter of the alphabet, a punctuation mark, or a graphic indication. The same combinations are used for numbers and musical notation. The introduction of this system has made the boundless field of culture and knowledge accessible to the blind.
By continually replacing visual elements with others perceptible to the touch, blind people can now concretely learn disciplines such as geography, geometry, the natural sciences, and so forth, with the aid of raised maps and drawings, relief models, models, and adapted instruments. With such special teaching materials, blind people are given the possibility of arriving at an understanding of forms and reproducing them through modelling and drawing.
Moreover, the education of hearing is fundamental in habituating blind people to spatial evaluations, the localization and assessment of obstacles, and the perception of architectural forms insofar as these can be recognized through the reflection of sounds: this permits the development of ease and independence of movement and of the ability to orient themselves. To a lesser extent, the other senses too, and especially the sense of smell, perform a complementary compensatory function.
It is only from this educational development that the sensory abilities of blind people arise—abilities that the public often erroneously attributes to a nonexistent sixth sense.
The first institution for the blind founded in Italy was that of SS. Giuseppe e Lucia of Naples (1818); it was followed by the Configliachi Institute of Padua (1838) and the Milan Institute (1840). Subsequently, all the principal cities of Italy acquired their own institution for the blind, established through the initiative of religious orders or private benefactors. At present Italy possesses a truly imposing educational complex, which has required the creation of a coordinating body: the National Federation of Institutions for the Blind, established in 1923 (Rome, Via Quattro Fontane, no. 147). The Federation, in agreement with the Italian Union of the Blind, obtained the extension of compulsory education to the blind and the related intervention of the State through grants for the institutions, and of the provinces through payment of fees for indigent blind persons (D. L. 30 Jan. 1923, no. 2839); the requirement of specialized training for teachers and assistants in schools for the blind, through a one-year training course at the school of method for educators of the blind, established for this purpose (R. D. 15 Nov. 1925, no. 2483); and the specialization of the institutions, whose implementation is still under way.
Of the thirty existing institutions, fourteen, recognized by the State as educational and instructional bodies, with elementary schools and schools for vocational preparation, are under the authority of the Ministry of Public Education, and their nationalization is imminent. Among the others, mention should be made of the school of method in Rome cited above (which, after the death of its founder Augusto Romagnoli, took his name); the Francesco Cavazza Institute of Bologna (music school and boarding school for secondary-school and university students); the Martuscelli Institute of Naples (music school and boarding school for secondary-school students); the Serafico Institute for those who became blind later in life in Assisi, run by the Rogationists; and the S. Alessio Institute of Rome (music school), run by the Somaschi Fathers. Among the other Italian institutions, mention should be made of the National Braille Printing House (Via Antonio Cocchi, no. 2, Florence), which supplies textbooks for schools and also publishes books on various cultural subjects; and the National Braille Library of Monza, which possesses numerous works available for loan, as well as a record library, still in the process of development, for the dissemination of the spoken book.
It should be noted that educational activity can also have a significant restorative effect with regard to those who became blind in adulthood. Although they cannot always achieve the results of sensory compensation characteristic of childhood, they nevertheless succeed in regaining an ability to perform intellectual or manual work. A specialized institution for vocational instruction, based in Florence, provides for their re-education, as well as for the training in various trades of young blind people who have left the other institutions. At the same institution, a school of massage—the only one recognized in Italy—prepares massage therapists.
The experience of the last half-century has demonstrated that blind people can also engage in manual work, in those activities or stages of production in which the use of sight is not indispensable. Apart from massage and the tuning and repair of musical instruments, in which the abilities of blind people equal and perhaps surpass those of sighted persons, other crafts are also open to those deprived of sight, such as the manufacture of brushes, basketry, knitwear, paper and cardboard goods, textiles, and so forth. Blind people can also work in ordinary industry, for example,
in the calibration of metal objects. In addition, special devices, such as, for example, the telephone switchboard that replaces optical signals with acoustic ones, enable blind people to be employed productively.
It should be noted that, until 1918, work for the blind was regarded more as an element of recreation on a charitable level than as a genuine possibility of productive employment. Experiments carried out in the United States (Ford) and in Germany demonstrated the contrary, namely, the possibility of placing the blind both in ordinary industry and in special workshops, where they would work with the assistance of sighted workers. The latter was the system that prevailed in Italy, with the establishment of the national labour organization for the blind (1934), which coordinated the activities of the various workshops for knitwear, weaving, hemp processing, bag making, shoemaking, metal haberdashery, etc., scattered throughout Italy; this organization existed without burdening public funds until 1944, but unfortunately has recently suffered the serious consequences of the post-war period.
Intellectual work offers the blind extensive possibilities. Today in Italy there are numerous teachers in public and private schools (approximately 150), as well as professionals engaged in law, journalism, and the management of commercial and industrial enterprises, etc.; music, both as instruction and as performance, also constitutes a fertile field of activity for blind people with specific aptitudes.
The organizational capacity of the blind has been demonstrated throughout the world, and particularly in Italy, by their occupational associations. In Italy, the Unione italiana dei c., founded in 1920 to promote cooperation between civilian and war-blinded people, gradually assumed ever greater importance, until it obtained recognition as the «representation and protection of the moral and material interests of the visually impaired before public administrations and before all bodies and institutions whose purpose is the assistance, education, and employment of the blind» (D. L. 26 Sept. 1947, no. 1047).
The State is entrusting the Union, which carries out its activities through a central office (Rome, Via Quattro Fontane, no. 147), 23 regional or interprovincial sections, and numerous subsections and representatives, with ever greater responsibilities. In 1948, in implementation of art. 38 of the Constitution, the Union was for the first time granted the funds necessary to distribute to all needy blind people a monthly assistance allowance, the amount of which is still modest; this grant, renewed for 1949, is still provisional in character, but tends to become permanent.
Furthermore, through the activities of one of its building agencies, the Union provides its members with public housing under an organized construction plan in the various cities.
The Union publishes three monthly periodicals in braille—the Corriere Braille, the Gennariello (for children), and the Faro (musical)—and one in print, the Corriere dei c.
Among the principal foreign institutions devoted to the education, employment, and assistance of the blind, the following should be mentioned: the Association Valentin Haüy pour le bien des aveugles, Paris; the Ligue Braille, Brussels; the Stichting «Het Nederlandse Blindenwezen», Amsterdam; the Blindenstudienanstalt, Marburg-Lahn; the Österreichischer Blindenverband, Vienna; the Dansk Blindenhof, Copenhagen; the Ostlandske Blindforbund, Oslo; the Blind Institute, Tomteboda (Sweden); the National Institute for the Blind, London; the St. Dunstan's College, London; the Irish National League of the Blind, Dublin; the Organización Nacional de Ciegos, Madrid; the Schweizerischer Blindenverband, Zurich; the American Foundation for the Blind, New York; the Perkins Institute, Watertown, Mass. (U.S.A.); and the American Foundation for Overseas Blind, New York. At the international conference on blindness held at Oxford (Aug. 1949), a committee was elected to promote an international federation of the blind, with its provisional headquarters in Paris.
Le pitture cimiteriali presentano la scena del miracolo secondo la narrazione di s. Giovanni (9, 1 agg.); però Cristo tocca la testa del c., non i suoi occhi.
La più antica rappresentazione si trovava in un cubicolo del cimitero di Domitilla, veduto intatto dal Bosio (Roma sotterranea, Roma 1632, p. 249); l'affresco venne distaccato dal Boldetti e dato insieme con altri dello stesso cimitero al benedettino Placido Scammacca il quale li collocò nel suo monastero di S. Nicolò in Catania, dove si conservano deturpati da restauri (H. Achelis, Römische Katakombenbilder in Catania, Berlino 1932, p. 14 e figg. 8, 96).
Il miracolo è poi rappresentato in un arcosolio di Priscilla (Wilpert, Pitture, tav. 70, 1); in tre cubicoli del cimitero Ad duas lauros (ibid., tavv. 68, 3; 105, 2; id., Ein Cyklus christologischer Gemälde aus der Katakombe der heil. Petrus und Marcellinus, Friburgo in Br. 1891, tavv. 1-4).
Nelle sculture invece si distinguono più rappresentazioni; in alcuni sarcofagi si trova la scena della guarigione del c. Bartimeo, narrato da Mc. 10, 46-52 e da Lc. 18, 35-43; tipico è l'esempio del frammento di Villa Doria a Roma.
La guarigione del c. nato è uno dei soggetti più spesso rappresentati nei sarcofagi cristiani antichi; il Garrucci e il Le Blant ne avevano dati cinquantasette esempi; il Wilpert ne ha aggiunti oltre venti (gli esempi elencati dal Garrucci e dal Le Blant sono in Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 296, n. 2; quelli del Wilpert, ibid., nn. 3 e 4). Gli esemplari più caratteristici sono offerti dai frammenti dei cimiteri di S. Callisto, S. Sebastiano e Pretestato (ibid., tavv. 228, 3; 229, 7; 231, 7).
Un bell'esempio è stato trovato in un sarcofago di recente rinvenuto presso la confessione di S. Pietro in Vaticano. Un gruppo di sarcofagi presenta invece la scena della guarigione di due c., secondo Mt. 20, 30-34, ai quali il Signore tocca gli occhi e restituisce la vista; in genere il primo c. si appoggia con il bastone, mentre l'altro si guida tenendo la sua mano sulla spalla del precedente; questa scena apre in genere la serie cristologica nel centro di sarcofagi specie nelle Gallie, ad es., nei sarcofagi di Dil (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 295, tav. 230, 2), di Clermont (ibid., p. 295, tav. 230, 5), di Valence (ibid., pp. 295-96, tav. 214, 6), di Leida (ibid., p. 296, fig. 93), di Tarragona (ibid., p. 296, tav. 230, 5).
Il prototipo romano è il sarcofago lateranense 125; nel sarcofago di Bassa in Pretestato i c. sono tre (ibid., p. 296 e tav. 207, 1).
S. Marco parla della guarigione del c. di Bethsaida (Mc. 8, 22-25). La scena è rappresentata in un sarcofago ora nell'atrio della basilica di S. Lorenzo in Agro Verano. Il Signore tiene tra le sue mani la testa del c. e gli tocca con la destra un occhio (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 296, tav. 197, 5).
In antichi monumenti cristiani non funerari la guarigione del c. si trova: in una delle formelle lignee intagliate della porta di S. Sabina in Roma (sec. v); in un vaso d'argento edito dal Bottari (Sculture, pitture sacre estratte dai cimiteri in Roma, I, Roma 1737, p. 18, 5).