This monument of history and book art is an incomplete copy, counting 467 leaves (out of 470); 250 of them annotated by Fra Girolamo. Until 1926 in the collection of the Marquis Meli Lupi of Soragna, this Bible was purchased by the Tammaro De Marinis, bookseller and bibliophile, at the time an apprentice at the Marghieri antiquarian bookshop in Naples. De Marinis was not new to such scoops: in a catalogue "Manuscrits et Livres Rares Autographes Incunables" of 1911, lot 86, offered a «Lettre Autographe par Girolamo Savonarola, signée, addressée à Ludovico il Moro, Duc de Milan 'Ex conventu S.cti Marci Florentiae die xj április 1496', long unpublished letter of the utmost importance», as the young bookseller boasted. At the time of the acquisition, more than one voice criticized the expenditure. In the City Council, Professor Adolfina Mello
ni (Liberal Party) questioned the "haste" with which the negotiations were conducted, the amount, the absence of acounter-offer which might have been reasonable and advantageous «for the city, with a budget in trouble, grappling with the problems of poverty: slum clearance, for example». After discussions and skirmishes between various members of the City Council, Senator Mario Roffi, masterfully, concluded: «I do not think you should ever draw a comparison with other needs, when making a charge towards cultural and civic investments. [...] If our country, having failed to resolve these problems [of housing and unemployment] had closed its art galleries, libraries and all its artistic and cultural institutions we would not solve the problems of housing, unemployment and others which we suffer, but rather would push our country backwards in the protection of its cultural heritage: more backward than it
unfortunately is in the purely economic and social sectors. In Italy, it's finally time to do justice of a classification of expenditure which considers "luxury goods" anything that relates to culture in general, and specifically on this aspect of culture, which is the preservation of our monuments, be they pieces of architecture or books. This heritage is not only of high spiritual value, but of high economic and commercial value too. [...} For these reasons, we believe that this is not an unproductive expenditure, not an expenditure on luxuries, but an expense that has the same legitimacy of all the social investments that we bear to provide our city with infrastructures, schoools and the such».
A Bible and heresy
The Ariostea library keeps a treasure which caused discussions, all the more up-to-date when acquired.
Thanks to the information provided by a noted book collector, Renzo Bonfiglioli, in 1959 the Municipality of Ferrara acquired a treasure of history and culture: the Biblia Latina annotated by Girolamo Savonarola, when a novice in Ferrara, between 1479 and 1482.
"Nebbia" by Andrea Veronese
Love defeated by political fervour in Ferrara through the 1950 s.
The novel Nebbia [Fog] by Andrea Veronese held me enthralled from its very first pages, encouraging me to have it published as part of the Corbo literature series. The book makes an impact right from the very first scenes, where the focus gradually narrows down onto the events that unfolded in Ferrara between 22 October and 8 December 1954, when
Dancing
Ferrara dance venues, from debutante balls to Latin-American nights.
In his book A question of stature. The story of a boy who grew too much, Gaetano Tumiati brings us back to a Ferrara of the thirties and forties, when young people met in exclusive places to dance the tango, waltz, mazurka, and the rumba.
Update on the Costabili collection
The research on collecting never stops.
This article will provide an update on the Costabili collection in view of new information that has emerged over the last 10 years on works that have often only been recently identified as forming part of the Costabili collection.
I was born in the F.lli Navarra Agricultural College
Or: how I found my forgotten birthplace, during a professional visit
I was born in Malborghetto di Boara (Municipality of Ferrara) on 26 December 1926, in the F.lli Navarra agricultural college. My father had taken over management of the college a few months previously, having transferred from the Fabriano agricultural college.
A Bible and heresy
Written by Andrea Nascimbeni e Leopoldo Santini
The Ariostea library keeps a treasure which caused discussions, all the more up-to-date when acquired.
Thanks to the information provided by a noted book collector, Renzo Bonfiglioli, in 1959 the Municipality of Ferrara acquired a treasure of history and culture: the Biblia Latina annotated by Girolamo Savonarola, when a novice in Ferrara, between 1479 and 1482.
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Num. 32