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Tattoos were once neither popular nor acceptable as a form of body modification. According to the Book of Genesis, the first tattooed person, or to be more precise, the first person in history to be seen with a tattoo was Cain, the head of a cursed family. Among the characteristics of tattoos, it is worth mentioning that they were perceived as a judgemental sign, often associated with the world of prostitutes and marginalised people. The West was unfamiliar with the widespread practice of skin drawings, and tattoos first came to our world through the diaries of James Cook, who used the term "tattoo" after returning from his first voyage to the South Seas. It is from the amazing reports of eighteenth-century travellers that an exotic idea of distant ethnicities emerges, and tattoos in this context play a major role in defining the otherness of unfamiliar peoples.

Thanks to the «cursed» aura, tattooing gained great popularity in the mid-seventies of the last century, when punks came on the scene with their vision of tattooing as a form of protest. At that time, marked by a deep economic crisis and high youth unemployment, the punk theatre of precariousness is embodied in tattoos and self-garms that emphasise a savage and marginalised position. Since the nineties, tattoos have suddenly become a widespread, even "normalised" sign among young people, and no longer cause rejection or ostracism. Now tattoos are a part of fashion, and signs on the skin are perceived as a subjective manifestation of one's own style. The charm of protest and body modification are now taking on forms of hybrid coexistence with queer communities, where new searches for identity and perceptions of self intersect.

Alessandra Castellani analyses the origins and present of tattoos, inviting us on a fascinating journey through time and space: from the Bible to seventies London, from the new world discovered by eighteenth-century travellers to contemporary cities. A fascinating story written on our skin that is well worth reading!