HIDDEN TREASURES IN ITALIAN LIBRARIES

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V20 2017 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 20, Number 26, June 25, 2017, Article 23

May I bring your readers' attention to the front page story of the Travel Section of the Sunday New York Times (6/18/17). The first four paragraphs by David Laskin are maybe the best I have every read on the magic of the library. The article is well illustrated but disappoints because having set me up in the beginning, it never shows me the magic of the Marciana. The pictures of Italian libraries that illustrate the article are wonderful but do not make up for the lack of the one image Laskin set me up for.

The article nevertheless presents some great advice for tourists abroad, and one doesn't have to be a bibliophile to benefit. The magnificent buildings can be a joy in themselves, and are usually far from the usual madding crowd of fellow tourists. Off the beaten path lie many overlooked treasures. -Editor

In the madness of late spring at San Marco Square in Venice, amid the hordes pouring in from land and sea, hard by the hissing espresso machines and sizzling panini presses of overpriced cafes, I found the still point of the turning world.

It was 10 in the morning and I was standing, alone and enthralled, on the second floor balcony of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. Across the Piazzetta rose the Doge’s Palace. At my feet, tourist insanity. At my back, an immense, hushed, empty reading room designed by Jacopo Sansovino and decorated by Titian and Veronese.

Why go to the library in Italy when all around you there is fantastic art, exalted architecture, deep history and intense passionate people? Because, as I discovered in the course of a rushed but illuminating week dashing from Venice to Rome, Florence and Milan, the country’s historic libraries contain all of those without the crowds.

Accompanied by my friend Jack Levison (a Bible scholar at Southern Methodist University who was in Italy to study ancient manuscripts), I hit six libraries in a literary Giro d’Italia. Not once were we shushed or told not to touch.

Carlo Campana, the librarian on duty in the Marciana manuscript room when we arrived, was typical in his affable erudition. Bald, voluble, with a pirate’s flashing grin, Mr. Campana left his post to take me on a quick tour of the library’s monumental public rooms.

“The Marciana was built here as part of the 16th-century project to create a triumphal entry to the city from the lagoon,” he said, joining me on the balcony off the “salone,” Sansovino’s palatial reading room. “Situating the library in the most important place in Venice reflects the prestige of the book in the culture of the city.” Knit seamlessly into the architectural fabric surrounding San Marco, the Marciana was hailed by Palladio as the richest and most ornate building “since Antiquity” when it opened in 1570.

To read the complete article, see:
The Hidden Treasures in Italian Libraries (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/travel/italian-libraries-hidden-treasures-books-architecture-art.html)

Wayne Homren, Editor