The Antiquarian Book Trade serves Cultural Heritage: Assessments and perspectives on book heritage policy

Image above: Gabriele Maspero at the 2025 ILAB Presidents' Meeting in Melbourne.

THE ANTIQUARIAN BOOK TRADE SERVES CULTURAL HERITAGE
Assessments and perspectives on book heritage policy

Italy is the country with the strictest regulations in the Western world concerning the circulation of rare books. This is often perceived by us antiquarian booksellers - sometimes unfairly, sometimes not - as an institutional interference exercised arbitrarily, undermining our entrepreneurial freedom.¹

Let me offer one example, a lengthy one but, I hope, indicative. In 2019, the Soprintendenza (Superintendence) for Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta issued an official notification - i.e. declared of exceptional national interest and therefore, first and foremost, banned from export - concerning seven volumes of modest value, only a few hundred euros each, solely because of the presence on their endpapers of the bookplate of Milanese bibliophile Spartaco Asciamprener (1915–1954).² The decree justified its decision with “the high interest of the collection”, which, however, has not existed for decades, having been dismantled and dispersed, with no public expression of any intention to reassemble it. The decree further suggested applying the same strict standard “to any other volume belonging to the same library collection,” so that today any book bearing Asciamprener’s Ex libris presented to the Export Office is systematically blocked.

Single volumes with the Asciamprener Ex libris have been circulating on the antiquarian market for over half a century, following legitimate sales by the heirs at various times; a quick online search will confirm this. The bulk of these books was acquired and resold in the 1960s by bookseller Carlo Alberto Chiesa.³ Moreover, although Spartaco Asciamprener - an industrialist in the glass sector, motorcyclist, amateur writer, and friend of booksellers - had set out to create in Lorenteggio a legendary, heterogeneous library, the vicissitudes of war and his premature death at only 39 prevented this, as recounted by Cesarino Branduani.⁴ The academic community has long asked itself, among other things, why Garzanti entrusted Asciamprener with the editing of Guido Gozzano’s letters, and the critic Franco Contorbia, who listed the negative reviews,⁵ hypothesised a power dynamic arising from the fact that the Milanese bibliophile actually owned the poet’s papers.⁶

In short, the notification of a book simply because it belonged to a collector seems, in principle, always culturally justifiable by the State - but it imposes on the unlucky private owner a series of severe obligations and restrictions.

A climate of suspicion and its historical roots

This should not lead booksellers into polemics. The case is recounted here to illustrate an institutional climate fundamentally hostile to the market and to examine its historical roots. This structural rigidity - manifested primarily in the use of notification rather than pre-emption or purchase - raises the question of whether antiquarian bookselling still has an honourable role in Italy. Here, more than elsewhere, compliance with the law comes at a very high cost, placing legal practitioners at a clear competitive disadvantage. We must therefore study the motivation behind such State interventions in book circulation, and the origins of the Republic’s cultural heritage legislation, under which our beloved rare books fall.

It is striking, when consulting Andrea Emiliani,⁷ to see that after Italian unification, the first governments did not formulate any new protection policy. Instead, in 1861, they chose to maintain the strictest and most absolutist of the pre-unification regulations: the Papal law. This had been issued as early as 1802 with the Chirograph of Pope Pius VII Chiaramonti and perfected in 1820 with the subsequent regulation by Cardinal Giuseppe Pacca, his Camerlengo. This was an institutional reaction to the massive spoliations during the French Revolution, the removal of artworks and archaeological finds under Napoleon Bonaparte, and the auction sales of precious monastic libraries following suppressions.

Rome, in particular, had become between the 18th and 19th centuries an inexhaustible source for European predatory collecting, supplying both Grand Tour travellers and foreign museums. This shocked the Pope and led to the strictest legislation in the world. With these cultural wounds, the conviction arose - rightly or wrongly - that the public interest was incompatible with the free circulation of works. Years later, the Italian State inherited this emergency mentality, applying the same law for almost half a century. It was considered then the most binding and modern legal framework and was even emulated by other European countries.

The legacy of a state-centred vision

Later Italian cultural heritage laws, from the 20th century to the early 21st, maintained an equally rigid and prohibitive approach, echoing 19th-century logic. The first national law of unified Italy was enacted only in 1902 (the Nasi Law), and then perfected and made comprehensive in 1909 (the Rosadi–Rava Law) under Giovanni Giolitti’s government, extending the definition of cultural property. Regardless of how practical it was, the severe orientation remained unchanged and even tightened further under Giuseppe Bottai’s 1939 law during the Fascist regime. Finally, its legacy persisted with undiminished flexibility in the Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code - the so-called Urbani Code⁸ - approved in 2004 under the Berlusconi government.

This state-centred and centralised legal structure - which grants the State a monopoly over protection and regards the market with suspicion - has indeed played an educational role in shaping Italians’ cultural consciousness, forging the idea of cultural heritage as something sacred and untouchable, envied by many countries. However, the persistence of these 19th-century ideals has also created a climate of constant suspicion towards antiquarian booksellers (as well as art dealers and antique dealers more generally), resulting in a damaging gap for the heritage itself.

Why is it that abroad, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries, the State works closely with booksellers and collectors, considering them valuable partners in building collections, whereas in Italy the opposite is true? Why should Italian booksellers fear notification instead of hoping for collaboration through pre-emption or purchase by libraries? Let me be clear: “Until a few decades ago, Italy was wonderfully preserved precisely because it was still backward,”⁹ not thanks to the effectiveness or dynamism of its cultural heritage policies. Acknowledging the market’s role could have helped enrich and promote the bibliographic heritage. It is time to imagine a more participatory approach for today, leaving fantasies about a different past behind.

Towards collaboration for mutual benefit

How can we improve things? Can antiquarian booksellers contribute to heritage protection? This is not an unreasonable claim. I would like to mention some recent examples that, despite obstacles and setbacks, may signal a growing trust between institutions and the market, and - fingers crossed - point towards a more inclusive approach.

The first case dates to last winter. Our “union” - as Alberto Vigevani used to call the Associazione Librai Antiquari d’Italia (ALAI)¹⁰ - took part in bi-weekly meetings of the Ministry of Culture’s Heritage Protection Department to revise the decree regulating the international circulation of cultural property.¹¹ ALAI was formally included in this institutional working group, together with the Fine Arts Directorate, the Archives Directorate, the Libraries Directorate, the Ministry’s Legal Office and our colleagues from the Apollo Group, the umbrella organisation representing stakeholders in the art market.¹²

During many sessions, ALAI and Apollo provided detailed input on the decree’s articles and clauses, as well as opinions from the State Attorney’s Office, adopting a constructive and participatory approach. In my view, a real spirit of collaboration emerged, and - to paraphrase Camillo Boito - an interesting balance between the necessary respect for the past and the rights of the future.¹³ The focus was on simplifying the decree, making it more effective according to the Ministry’s own expressed needs. While the final document is still under review as I write, the key point is that a real convergence between the Ministry and stakeholders was possible, laying the foundations for future cooperation. Relations between ALAI and Apollo have also intensified, committing us to future joint work on shared issues.

The second case concerns the special attention that, in the reorganisation of the Ministry of Culture, will in future be devoted to library and archival heritage — and the contribution our sector could make. In discussions between ALAI and the Ministry, the need emerged to address certain practical problems concerning the issuing of export permits for books, which are more affected by bureaucracy than other categories of cultural goods, placing a heavy burden on administrative staff. The Directorate General for Libraries considered an ALAI note on good practices to be adopted in the new Export Offices that will be established throughout the country.

Furthermore, in light of the recent decree transferring responsibility for issuing export permits for rare books from the Fine Arts Offices to the Archival and Bibliographic Superintendencies,¹⁴ the Technical Scientific Committee for Libraries and Cultural Institutions met to examine the issue. It is a sign of democracy that a proposal from an organisation like ours - long committed to regulating and improving the antiquarian, rare, and second-hand book trade in close collaboration with institutions safeguarding national heritage - is being considered as a possible guideline. Meliora speramus.

The role of the antiquarian bookseller

If anything I have written has touched a nerve, let me clarify that this is not meant as a theoretical speculation. We antiquarian booksellers, even those holding positions of responsibility in trade associations, in fact leave theoretical and specialist heritage protection to librarians and officials. They have their role; we are commercial operators. Our reflections are not dispassionate studies: we are the private counterpart, and our policy is tied to business. We want to sell books.

However, in a modern context, this particular type of trade should no longer be seen as a kind of original sin - even if, as we have seen, prejudice runs deep in Italian history - nor as something inherently at odds with cultural heritage protection. Readers will agree that without a skilled and legitimate trade capable of making discoveries, rare books in modern Italy would no longer be found, studied, collected, or offered professionally to institutions. Culture would suffer irreparably, since a well-regulated market has never proven useless or harmful to heritage.

This was eloquently demonstrated by Stephanie Stillo, Head of Rare Books at the Library of Congress in Washington, in a powerful speech at the ILAB Congress in Amsterdam in October 2024.¹⁵ “Commercial cataloguing,” she said, “is the first formal contact librarians have with books on the market and the basis for justifying their acquisition. Antiquarian catalogues are studied, archived, and actively used for research, just as booksellers use library metadata in return. In this sense, institutions rely on the accuracy and diligence of the trade.”

She continued: “Booksellers act as a bridge between a collector who intends to donate or sell his collection and the library system. Major institutions often lack the capacity to build those personal relationships of trust that take years of financial and human investment between a dealer and a collector. In the end, libraries benefit enormously from the relationships born in antiquarian bookshops.”

She added, equally significantly: “National trade associations are seen by the Library of Congress as a bulwark against theft in the collecting world, and leading institutions are beginning to use the Missing Books Register, the recent platform created by ILAB listing missing books whose details are known.¹⁶ This tool is widely promoted among libraries affiliated with the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), and it’s through this that curators also rely on the trade’s knowledge in the security field.”

In short, to avoid going on too long, Stephanie Stillo summed up the fundamental functions of the antiquarian book trade for libraries in three words: “Memory” (source of information), “Matchmaker” (connector with owners), and “Monitor” (barrier against illegality). This is a clear triad that underlines the value of our work. It is based less on abstract reasoning than on the direct experience of a U.S. public librarian.

There is no doubt that these roles strengthen our professional commitment and give our work intrinsic meaning - especially in times when triumphant recoveries like that of the Borso d’Este Bible by bookseller Tammaro De Marinis are but a distant memory.¹⁷

Thinking of the antiquarian book trade in this way - as an indispensable link in the cultural heritage chain - may finally lead to its recognition in Italy as a contributor to the common good. And from here, season after season, we can renew our longstanding offer of collaboration with institutions.

Gabriele Maspero
President of the Associazione Librai Antiquari d’Italia

Footnotes

1. LEO S. OLSCHKI, La persecuzione doganale dei libri in Italia, in La Bibliofilía, Vol. 7, No. 5/7 (August–October 1905), pp. 129–138.
2. Soprintendenza Archivistica e Bibliografica del Piemonte e della Valle d’Aosta, Decree no. 18 of 23 October 2019.
3. CARLO ALBERTO CHIESA, «Un mestiere semplice». Ricordi di un libraio antiquario, Milan, Officina Libraria, 2016, pp. 41–45.
4. CESARINO BRANDUANI, Memorie di un libraio, Milan, Longanesi, 1964, pp. 168–169.
5. GUIDO GOZZANO – AMALIA GUGLIELMINETTI, Lettere d’amore, ed. Franco Contorbia, Macerata, Quodlibet 2019, pp. 211–226.
6. CLAUDIA BRUNOTTI, ‹‹Fruscìo di seta››. Amalia Guglielminetti poetessa (e la corrispondenza con Gozzano), MA Thesis, University of Pisa, 2012–2013, p. 59.
7. ANDREA EMILIANI, Leggi, bandi e provvedimenti per la tutela dei beni artistici e culturali negli antichi stati italiani, Florence, Edizioni Polistampa 2015.
8. Legislative Decree 42/2004.
9. ANDREA EMILIANI, op. cit., p. XV.
10. ALBERTO VIGEVANI, La febbre dei libri. Memorie di un libraio bibliofilo, Palermo, Sellerio Editore, 2000, p. 40.
11. Ministerial Decree 246/2018.
12. Associazione Gruppo Apollo is the Italian confederation uniting professional associations in the art sector; it monitors and supports the cultural heritage sector.
13. CAMILLO BOITO, Questioni pratiche di Belle Arti, Milan, Ulrico Hoepli 1893, pp. 67–85.
14. DPCM 57/2024.
15. ILAB Presidents’ Forum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 14 Oct. 2024, Session 3: Fostering Stronger Ties. Collaboration between the Rare Book Trade and Special Collections Libraries.
16. https://missingbooksregister.org
17. MARTINA BAGNOLI, Tammaro De Marinis e la Bibbia di Borso d’Este. Cronaca di un trionfale recupero, in «Multa renascentur». Tammaro De Marinis studioso, bibliofilo, antiquario, collezionista, Venice, Marsilio Editori, 2023, pp. 67–75.