Saba and the Trieste Civic Library

Umberto Saba, Della biblioteca civica ovvero della gloria, (“The Civic Library, or the Glory”), Milano, Henry Beyle, 2013
The short fragment published here in a small edition for bibliophiles, addressed to his daughter Linuccia, retraces the poet’s childhood readings “among which stand out in my memory, The Thousand and One Nights, in Galland’s version, or falsification; in any case a delightful fusion of the ancient Orient and the French 18th century” and of his youth, up to his encounter, at the Hortis library, with Carducci’s work.

Pietro Opiglia, [Reading room of the Attilio Hortis Public Library], Trieste, pre-1930
The reading room of the “Hortis” here portrayed in a photo from the 1920s was no longer the 1900-1901 one that Saba recalled in his writing: “a dusty room rarely open to the public, and preceded by an antechamber, on the walls of which hung portraits (which all looked alike) and represented characters in white wigs and powdered hair. Upon entering the public room, one had to fill out a card, sign it, and present it to a strange attendant (who was waiting standing in front of a window, from which he eventually jumped)”.