Rescuing Books from British Pubs | 🍂 Footnotes #9
In this edition: Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Bocaccio, Carlo Rovelli, Victor Hugo and Peter Jackson.
💭 Word of the week: Biblioclast - a person who mutilates or destroys books.
Hello friends,
In 1814, a poet from Orléans discovered that a wine cask had been packed with parchment. The parchment contained an unknown poem by Juvenal, the Roman satirist.1 If it was not for this intelligent and attentive poet from Orléans, we could have lost another masterpiece of literature. One often wonders how many such works have sunk into oblivion and weren’t preserved because of the carelesnesses, ignorance or sometimes outright malevolence of people.
Recently, a lost work of art by the great Venetian painter Titian was found at a London bus stop. How did it end up there? Nobody knows. It often feels as if Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, mocks and plays tricks on us. She hides lost poems in wine casks and leaves stunning works of art at bus stops. It feels, as if, she tests our attention, assesses how cultured we are. She knows that it is easy to recognise beauty in a gallery or a museum where curators selected everything for you. Can you however, recognise great art if you see it out of context?
Last week, Mnemosyne put me to a test. I was attending a wedding party of friends and saw bookshelves right opposite the bar. I gathered all my focus and started scanning the shelves for some good editions. It was a hard task since at this point I already had 3 or 4 beers.
Most of the books on the shelves were redundant encyclopaedias, the sort of books interior designers buy by weight at a charity shop. (Interior designer: How much is 4 kilos of books?) I was about to give up, but then I saw a worn out spine of a book that I was searching for some time.
It was an illustrated edition of Bocaccio’s The Decameron! I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Giovanni Bocaccio, together with Dante and Petrarch, is part of the ‘Three Crowns’ of Italian literature. He was a precursor of what we know today as humanism and influenced great poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer and Miguel de Cervantes.
It is extremely hard to find a well-illustrated edition of his work in English. I even asked booksellers I met at the London’s BookFair but they told me that they have no editions of The Decameron below 500$ price.
Who would have thought that the book I have been looking for was waiting for me on a shelf at a pub. I have never sobered up so quickly in my life. The effect of those four beers I had before instantly disappeared.
People around me used books as coasters for their beers so I started looking for other valuable volumes to rescue from this place. I found Horace’s Epistles mutilated beyond rescue (destroyed cover, broken binding, missing pages). This was hell for a bibliophile and heaven for biblioclast. (Biblioclast - a person who mutilates or destroys books)
I found the manager of the venue and asked the weirdest question they ever heard:
‘I found this book’ - I said and when caught her attention I continued - ‘Can I buy it? How much does it cost?’
The manager looked perplexed by my question and some of the wedding guests overheard me and looked confused as well.
I got the book for free but left a fair tip to the staff. My friends later told me that: ‘Only Vashik can buy a book in a pub.’ Despite the strangeness of the situation I just simply could not allow this book to stay in that building. I had to rescue this treasure from the flames (or spillage) of neglect.
This book is neither a lost poem by Juvenal found by a poet from Orléans nor a lost painting by great Titian discovered at a London bus stop. It does not cost millions or even thousands, but what I know and feel for certain is that this book did not deserve to be a coaster for a pint of beer.
Next time you see books used as a decoration, please pay attention, you might find a neglected treasure there.
As always - Confide tibimet.
Proofread and edited by Lisa Statler
🍂 Footnotes
Anton-Babinsky syndrome and the denial of our blindness
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How reading can make you famous?
I am currently…
📖 Currently reading: Prue Shaw’s Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity
🎧 Current audiobook: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle Earth
📚 Book(s) Bought this Week: Selected Poems by Victor Hugo
🖋️ Quote of the week
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I’ve made several ‘Guided journaling’ videos, where we sit down and journal together, I give journaling tips based on science, and I share some very personal pieces of advice based on my own journey.
I have been in 1-2 restaurants and pubs that used books as decor but I was never lucky enough to make a find like that. Maybe I just need to visit the pub more often. LOL
Congratulations on that slice of serendipity.
That is wonderful! And it's strange for me to think about books in pubs like that... how fortunate that you saw it and were able to obtain it!
I didn't know that illustrated editions of the Decameron could be so expensive... I have one from 1890 that I also saved from used and battered books.