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Index First editions Manzoni's collections Bibliophile's works Letters and photographs
"I have always conceived my work as a writer as a commitment to culture" - wrote Marino Parenti in an autobiographical sheet, also specifying that he did not have "I never encountered any difficulty in publishing my books, which today form a beautiful row of about seventy volumes". Of his work as a passionate bibliophile, with a particular interest in our literary nineteenth century, as well as animator of some cultural seasons and radio broadcasts, we provide below some traces found in the texts of the Fund acquired by the historical library.
Promessi Sposi's first Bohemian edition
Or Zasnaubenci, in the translation in seven volumes of Propkop Ondrák published in Prague in 1842, printed and sold by Anna Spinkova (Karel Vetterle for the seventh volume) in the Old Town.
Parenti writes a short essay on this edition for the Biblioteca del Messaggero of the Libreria Italiana (1932). He reports that the work has a purple cover and carries on the facade and on the rib the indication: "Library of pleasant literature" and informs us about the translator and about the fact that this work "if not the first, is among the very first translations from our language and, undoubtedly, the most important of that period".
Born in Prague in 1810, Ondrák studied philosophy and theology and was ordained a priest in 1834. Contributor to many magazines, he publishes a collection of orations and also translates from French (Chateaubriand among others). He died in 1873. A man of vast culture, he was probably induced to the translation of the Promessi Sposi by the religious intonation of the novel (as deduced by Parenti). A preface replaces Manzoni's Introduction.
The translation also aimed to consolidate a language: Jungmann's Bohemian dictionary was completed only two years before Ondrák's work.
Dictionary of fake, invented or supposed print sites
Very often to avoid that it was traceable the typography where rare books were printed, they used names of false cities or pure fantasy. Fake press sites typically refer to large known cities, or nations, even continents, or exploit names of pure fantasy. The practice was common especially in the period between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and appeared in anonymous books, signed with pseudonyms, and forgeries were also the names of printers.
All this was right in the restrictions on the freedom of the press and also "in religious disputes - and the use in fact was born with the Reformation - then in politics and licentious literature" (He writes Parenti in the preface to his dictionary published by Sansoni in 1951).
The first part is dedicated to false places in works of Italian authors or translators, the second part to works in which the generic place "Italy" appears, the third finally to false Italian places abroad.
The curious and learned Dictionary reminds Parenti, author of the never-ending bibliography of the -eidi, or of the publications ending in -eide.
Bibliographical rarity of the nineteenth century
Published by the Italian Institute of Graphic Arts (Bergamo, 1941-44), this work is based on the materials of the library of Parenti, and constitutes the summa of his skills. There are precious bibliographical references, publications and news of authors and printers. It remained unfinished, the author wanted a continuation but only five volumes came out.
They examine in it Lo studente di padova, work that earned the celebrity to Arnaldo Fusinato (1817-1888), frequenter of the cafe Pedrocchi and author of the famous ode A Venice ("The disease rages, the pan we miss/ on the bridge waving white flag"); l' Arrigo. From Quarto al Volturno, poem by Giuseppe Cesare Abba (1838-1910), patriot, educator and Garibaldi; the famous Diamante collection (named after one of the smallest typefaces), printed by Gaspero Barbera and composed of 128 tiny books, almost all of Italian literature, including a very rare Divina Commedia of 1856; some works by Cesare Cantù (1804-1895), including the Hymns printed in Milan in 1836 by Stella, the publisher of Leopardi, and the three-volume novel Margherita Pusterla published in 1838; the very rare first edition (De Andreis, Milan 1866) of the novel Paolina by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti, author of Fosca; the first edition of Collodian Pinocchio, published by Paggi in Florence in 1883 with the famous illustrations of Mazzanti; finally the first editions manzoniane, including the poem In morte di Carlo Imbonati (Paris 1806), the Inni Sacri (Milan 1815), the Conte Di Carmagnola (Milan 1820), the Adelchi (Milan 1822), the ventisettana of the Promessi Sposi and the quarantana with the inclusion of the Storia della Colonna Infame.
Still the Nineteenth century
In Ottocento questo sconosciuto (Sansoni, Florence 1954) documents become fragments of life, as suggested by the subtitle Inediti e aneddoti. Parenti reconstructs a map of our Nineteenth century from Manzoni to De Amicis to D'Azeglio (who was Manzoni's son-in-law) to Belli, reconstructing its reports and presenting little-known documents, rare or unpublished. Still unknown or almost unknown Nineteenth century (Sansoni, Florence 1961), in which it's Manzoni, Carducci publisher, De Amicis and Scapigliati and others, constitutes with the previous and with Penna rossa inchiostro verde (Sansoni, Florence 1956) a trilogy that completes Parenti's thorough investigation of the Italian Nineteenth century.
Essential dannunzian bibliography
With this work begins the collaboration of Parenti with the publishing house Sansoni who entrusted it to him on the occasion of the death of the poet pescarese. The revised and corrected edition is from 1940 and gives an account, starting from bibliographical investigations begun already in 1904 by the Cross, both of the poet's works and writings around his life and his literary production.
Bagutta
At the column of San Babila, in Milan, "where Renzo found bread in the days of famine", as Orio Vergani recalls, and precisely in Via Bagutta, there was a Tuscan trattoria run by Alberto Pepori. Discovered by the writer Riccardo Bacchelli, it became in the spring of 1926 the meeting place of an upper room of writers and intellectuals who gravitated around the magazine La Fiera Letteraria. It was attended by Bontempelli, Bragaglia, Repaci, Longanesi, and various Milanese wanderers... It was founded the homonymous prize, won over the years by the most beautiful names of Italian literature, including Gadda, Cardarelli, Brancati, Montanelli, Calvino, Landolfi, Primo Levi, Chiara, Rigoni Stern, Bassani, Scaiscia, Magris, Bocca, Arbasino. Marino Parenti, who was a member of the group with the playful position of Grand Conservator and Master of Ceremonies, tells us about it in a booklet that evokes its beginnings, published by Ceschina in Milan in 1928.
To the radio's microphones
In 1945 in Florence was born, on the initiative of Adriano Seroni, the weekly radio column L'Approdo, lasting about half an hour, in which books were commented, poems were read, cultural topics were discussed: it was also born a magazine printed in Turin, L'Approdo Lettario, and, from 1963 to 1972, the homonymous television broadcast. Starting from 1950, within the radio program, a column entitled L'Approdo dei bibliofili was entrusted to Marino Parenti, who already in 1928 had begun a collaboration with the radio medium ocupandosi the spread of Italian culture abroad.
On Trent'anni di microfono, released in Milan by Ceschina in 1963, Parenti leaves us with an articulated memory of this thirty-year collaboration.