Considering the date, I'd like to share with ARA readers three papers from my personal library that not even Google, ChatGPT, or their robotic cousins know about because they are, in whole or in part, handwritten. It's as if they don't exist, but the fact is they do, like so many billions of photographs or documents that haven't been digitized. Of course they do!
The first one I found at auction a few years ago is a personal diary of the Italian painter Guido Marussig (Trieste, 1885 - Gorizia, 1972). The document covers the period from 1922 to 1925 and is written primarily in Italian—but also in French and English—in Florence, Paris, London, and other places. There are several allusions to his friend Gabriele D'Annunzio, with whom he was very close. On June 28, 1925, the sculptor Aldo Valeriani, dying or very ill from what can be deduced, bids farewell to life by dedicating the diary itself, in shaky handwriting very different from the author's. It's truly impressive: "Soffro! And fine when? I believe in finding the solution quickly: eternal life" [the latter written in very large capital letters]. Not everything is so hopeless, however. On April 21, 1923, he simply notes: "happy day"On the rest of the page, which she leaves blank, she sews some small ivy leaves. "loves the cult of memories". And that's just what it does.
The second text that will not be sold today at the Sant Jordi stalls is another manuscript for personal use, in this case from the end of the 18th century, from 1782. It is about Ordinances are edited concerning criminal justice in usageThe author is a certain Barras, criminal lieutenant. In Ancien Régime France, this figure was a kind of investigating judge and police officer at the same time. criminal lieutenant was considered as the most handsome man in France ("the most powerful man in France"). This manuscript has important historical value because it allows us to reconstruct the specific concerns of French justice just a few years before the Revolution. Most of the laws collected and commented on in this notebook are related to the subject of Mendians (beggars) of rural France, more or less organized into "germanies." Some of the laws cited are quite recent, from the 1760s and 1770s, while others are still from the 17th century. The text provides a glimpse into a turbulent society rife with inequalities. On the final pages of the manuscript (blank), there is a very curious little drawing, most likely done by a child and certainly dating from after 1789: the head of an adult man wearing the Phrygian barretina...
The third book that will sell the least this Sant Jordi is a 1688 edition of the Tetrateuchus, sive commentarius in sancta Jesu Christi Evangelia, by Cornelius Jansen, better known as Jansenius or, in Catalan, Janseni (1585-1638). In this case, it is not a manuscript, but a printed book with a theological theme but which is completely full of hand-made inscriptions, signatures, dates, drawings, signs that are difficult to interpret, etc. After theAgustinus, is the most important work of Jansenism, and had a great influence on authors such as Pascal (Pere Lluís Font was delighted to examine it). It is very likely that this copy was part of the library of some theology or philosophy faculty, and that the successive layers of notes, drawings, etc. were made by bored students by candlelight (there are wax stains and burnt pages). A lot can happen to a given volume in 337 years—even someone writing an article like the one you are reading.
I can't imagine my life apart from books. I've read many and written several. The first, in the public library of Granja de Escarpe, which today bears my name (it's the recognition that has most touched my heart of all the ones I've had the privilege of receiving). Books aren't just "information," nor are writers "content creators." To speak in these terms is disrespectful. Today it's time to choose and sort, but keeping in mind that life is short, very short, and it's neither intelligent nor sensible to waste it on nonsense.
