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The author Piero Bargellini wrote in 1943 the article: "Chi è Pinocchio?" In the last line he wrote:
Ora leggete e sappiatemi poi dire se la cosa vi sembri possibile.
I know that "sappiatemi" is a compound of imperative ("voi" form) of "sapere" and "mi", but I don't understand its role in this sentence. Could you please explain it?
The sense of the sentence can be translated as "allow me to know/let me know if the thing seems possible to you." More literally though, it is more similar to "acknowledge yourself to tell me if the thing seems possible to you". This kind of baroque turns of phrases are far from the English way of communication, but are common in the Italian language.
(I am italian mothertongue)
This could be rephrased as
e poi sappiate dire a me
This inversion of the pronoun is common with verbs used in modal form such as volere, dovere, potere, fare and, in this case, sapere. Some examples:
The last could also be Non credevo di dover farlo, but usually the phonetic clash between ‘r’ and ‘f’ is avoided. Similarly, Bargellini’s sentence could have been
Ora leggete e poi sappiate dirmi se la cosa vi sembri possibile
(current Italian would use sembra, indicative, instead of sembri, subjunctive). The position of the adverb poi is irrelevant: sappiatemi poi dire, poi sappiatemi dire, sappiate poi dirmi, poi sappiate dirmi are all equivalent.
In addition to egreg's answer I think it can be useful to elaborate on the meaning of saper dire.
The expression saper dire is an idiomact expression that can be roughly translated as to let (someone) know. It is often used in the imperative mood. Examples of the usage are
Scusi, mi sa dire l'ora? (Excuse me, could you tell me the time?)
Sappimi dire a che ora pensi di arrivare (Let me know when you think you're going to arrive)
Ti saprò dire per tempo quando mi devi inviare il documento (I'll let you know in time when to send the document)
So, a translation of the sentence in the question can be
Now read, and then let me know if the thing seems at all possible
(I'm adding the "at all" because the usage of subjunctive in the subordinate implies increased uncertainty)
