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Culture room, another piece of Italy starts again

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After a year of forced stop, the Culture Show is back, scheduled for Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 November at Superstudio Maxi in Via Moncucco, in Milan. Together with the section dedicated to publishers, with new publications, and that with used and second-hand books, always dear to many collectors, there is obviously great expectation for the section reserved for ancient and rare books edited by the Associazione Librai Antiquari d ‘Italy (Alai), where bibliophiles will be able to find a wide range of unobtainable works, out of print books, precious or artist’s volumes, first editions, manuscripts and incunabula. From the “Varon Milanes” by Giovanni Capis (1606), which exists in very few examples, an etymological dictionary of the Milanese lexicon on the Latin and Greek origin of the Milanese dialect, to the “Genuine history of the famous Last Supper painted by Leonardo da Vinci” published by Father Domenico Pino, first monograph of 1796; from the “Treatise on painting, and sculpture, use and abuse them” (1652) complete example of the very rare final four pages containing a letter by Guercino, to many first editions of the ‘900: to give some precious example, those of Eugenio Montale “Ossi of cuttlefish “and” Finisterre “, printed in 200 copies of which 150 numbered,” Doctor Zhivago “by Boris Pasternak, or all the works of Dino Buzzati, in the 50 years since his death, from the” Desert of the Tartars “to the various editions of “Invasion of the bears”, at the “Corriere dei Piccoli” where this fairy tale appeared for the first time in 1945.
«The Alai participates in the Salone della Cultura with its own section – explains Gabriele Maspero, antiquarian bookseller in Como and president of Alai -. We are just under fifty, most of them Italians but there are also some foreigners. It is a formula that aims to bring as many people as possible to the world of the ancient book and the rare book. The Salone della Cultura is an event that in recent years has attracted many readers, including young people, because you can find everything in the field of paper collecting: it seemed to us the best context in which to exhibit our volumes. During the lockdown we managed to work anyway, thanks to the online channels we already had but also by inventing online fairs. Alai organized one, Firsts Italia, which had some success, considering that collectors could not leave the house to feed their passion. Despite this, it is clear that the world of the rare book is a community that needs human contacts, real relationships, genuine handshakes, even if the moment is still difficult. The relationship with the bookseller, being able to touch books is another thing compared to the internet. Alai safeguards precisely the figure of the bookseller ». Maspero is not unbalanced when it comes to waiting for the public at the Salone della Cultura. “Our hope is to be able to bring the numbers of the first editions closer – he adds – This time as never before there is a big question mark, with the number of infections from Covid that seems to have started to rise again, but we are confident”.
On the occasion of the Salone della Cultura, Alai will present the yearbook, a publication of which she is particularly proud because it is not the classic “bulletin”, but rather a real magazine with relevant contents from a cultural point of view.

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