Day 13: page #mbapr

One of the best first pages I’ve ever read in a book. Contra Florencia by Mario Colleoni. Translation in the page picture’s Alt text.

Two books lie on a wooden surface, one titled Contra Florencia by Mario Colleoni, overlapping another titled La historia del arte by H. Gombrich. Spanish: Dos libros están sobre una superficie de madera, uno titulado Contra Florencia de Mario Colleoni, sobre otro titulado La historia del arte de H. Gombrich. Basque: Bi liburu egur gainean daude, bat Contra Florencia izenburua duena Mario Colleonirenak, beste bat La historia del arte izenburukoa H. Gombrichek egina, gainean jarririk. An ordinary day, without pretensions, I made the decision to abandon myself to the benefit of a good walk, looking for, as Christian Bobin would, what the day needs to be a day: a little joy. A kind afternoon shored up the last hours of light, accompanied by a temperate sun, peaceful as that sweet and kind stone, so local, so own, which here they call serene. Voluntary prey of chance, open in my imagination to any adventure, I let myself fall through the neighborhood of Ognissanti, a place traditionally inhabited by artists. As the shops were closed, I took the opportunity to climb to the windows of all the premises, the cafes and the antique shops that I saw, that there are dozens of them here and they are all of extraordinary quality. In the meantime, I saw some remarkable piece and wandered following the orthogonal line of an imaginary axis, block after block, bend after bend, until suddenly I turned into Via Borgo Ognissanti, I raised my head as if memory could interpret the sky and I remembered that, in one of the many boutiques that dot this street, on November 29, 1913 a man named Alfredo Geri received a franked telegram from Paris.