Mario Giupponi

When people ask me to explain my work, I tell them that bookselling is not a job, it’s a way to enjoy your life. The aim is not simply to earn money, but to live by and with books. The antiquarian business should probably be described as a vocation - how else could you explain the willingness to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week? Actually I don’t use the word ‘business’, as I believe that ‘activity’ is a better way to describe bookselling.

My own activity began quite by chance in 1987. A girlfriend at the time sold jewellery in local antique markets. On one occasion when I was helping her in Navigli antique market in Milan, a couple came along in the afternoon and offered us a couple of books of which they wanted to dispose. I hesitated because I didn’t know anything about the books, but then I decided to give it a go. We had to scramble around to find the money but, within a few seconds of putting the books on the stand, they were sold. It was particularly surprising as everyone knows that the real business at markets is done in the early morning. In fact the buyer told us that he never expected to find such books for sale at four in the afternoon. I can’t remember what they were, but at that moment I knew that I would become a bookseller.

We started in a casual way, moving from market trading in Milan to an office in Riva del Garda, on the site of the printing office of Jacob Marcaria, a Jewish physician who received a licence from the Bishop of Trent, to print Hebrew books in the late 1550s. After several years of issuing catalogues of old and rare books on literature, bibliography, history, travel, mountaineering and local Italian history, it became obvious that they were no longer useful for the business, and so we decided to open a shop in the historic centre of the town.

The shop is called Studio Bibliografico Benacense after the Latin word for anything relating to Lake Garda. A tourist resort is the perfect place to have a bookshop.  There are a lot of people around, and they are usually in a relaxed mood with time on their hands. Of course the overheads of running a shop in a place like Riva del Garda are enormous. Four of us work in the bookshop, including my elder daughter.  We’re open every day, and in the summer from eight in the morning until eleven at night. It’s very hard work but I couldn’t go back to having an office, as meeting the customers is very much part of my idea of bookselling.

I love the atmosphere in the shop during the evening. People come in after dinner, and they’re in a good mood. I put on some music and we often have interesting conversations. They may never have entered an antiquarian bookshop before and have no idea what’s going on, but it gives me the chance to engage their curiosity. I believe that running a bookshop is the best way to demonstrate the fascination of our world. Some visitors walk around for ten minutes and then ask what we’re selling. They clearly can’t imagine that you can earn a living from old books. Other visitors come in and assume the shop is some kind of library. And then there are the people who come into the shop, don’t buy or ask anything, speak very quietly, behave as if they’re in a church, and thank us when they leave. You wouldn’t behave like that in any other type of shop, and I see it as an acknowledgement that there’s something unique about what we do.

As a trade, we tend to assume that the general public understands our world, but it doesn’t. We need to get into their minds, and find ways of holding their interest. The fact that a book is very old may fascinate some people, but alienate others who find it too remote from their daily lives. An appreciation of the achievements of the past is definitely lacking from present-day culture with its emphasis on the future. James Bond is undoubtedly of more interest to young people today than Ludovico Ariosto. It’s important to have a mixture of stock so that everybody has the opportunity to buy something. At the same time I believe that we should try to introduce young people to the fascination of old books.

Although there are plenty of young antiquarian booksellers, I’m not aware of many young collectors in Italy. People tend to live in smaller houses, and don’t have the space for books. Twenty years ago you bought a book because you wanted to have it. Today I watch people hesitate as they ask themselves if they have room for it or the time to read it. When I started bookselling, my customers had a couple of hours each day to dedicate to interests outside their family or work, and reading would be one of them. Nowadays they still have the time, but most of it is consumed by social media. First there was the radio, then television and computers, and now Facebook and Instagram are competing for our time and attention.

Many national associations work hard to attract young people to visit book fairs, and organise guided tours for them. It’s an effective way to create interest in the antiquarian book world, as a well-organised visit is likely to stay in their memory. At the Rare Book and Graphic Arts Fair in Paris in 2024, my colleagues and I conducted tours of the fair for students on the Rare Book and Digital Humanities degree course at the Université de Franche-Comté in Besançon. All the exhibitors were so proud to show their books to the students - and not only the valuable items. There is so much to learn from and enjoy in oddities and unusual material.

Incidentally it was wonderful to find the association of bouquinistes at the fair. In 2023 the City of Paris had threatened to remove their stalls during the Summer Olympic Games in 2024. The President of the French association of antiquarian booksellers approached ILAB for support, and the bouquinistes won their battle. When I visited their booth, I was given a present for my ILAB colleagues for signing their petition. They considered ILAB’s support to have been decisive in their victory.

When I was on the committee of the Associazione Librai Antiquari d'Italia (ALAI), of which I became President in 2018, we worked hard to encourage and support younger Italian booksellers.  It’s important to recognise that development is organic. You have to learn step by step. It’s a mistake to start your business with a handful of important and expensive books. We all know examples of booksellers who started on a high, and disappeared after a few years. You should work your way up slowly, and be aware that money is not the most important factor. I can always tell if a person has what it takes to devote themselves to this work. When I show them a book and their eyes light up, I recognise immediately that they are moved by its beauty. If they ask my advice, I always start by showing them how to pack a book. Of course it’s important to know if the book should have three folding plates and an errata leaf, but you also need to be able to pack it properly.

Nowadays it’s very difficult to start from zero as an antiquarian bookseller, but there are other opportunities for working with old books. You can join an established business, or become a rare book librarian, or enter the world of informatics, as I discovered from the students in Besançon. The Master’s degree not only aims to teach students every aspect of the physical rare book, but it also provides them with computer skills for the digitisation projects currently under way in many cultural institutions.  

In the digital age, bookselling is an activity in which the physical sense of touch is still important. I need to hold a book in my hands to appreciate the details that make it right for me. You never know what will catch a customer’s eye as they browse the shelves; it could be the lettering on the spine or another small detail that sparks their curiosity. When you sell a book on the internet, you are usually restricted to illustrating your catalogue description with three images. The first two images are devoted to the binding and the title-page, which only leaves one chance to select and feature the detail that might in fact sell the book.

My fight with Amazon around five years ago was portrayed by the media in terms of David and Goliath. There were in fact several other booksellers who joined in the fight. We were objecting to the sudden exclusion of two European countries from selling their books on ABE, the online platform bought by Amazon in 2008.  When Amazon refused our request for an explanation, we went ‘on strike’ by asking colleagues to remove their stock from ABE. Millions of books disappeared, and we calculated that ABE’s income was halved. The response was immediate, and the two countries were reinstated, although no explanation was given.

In 2022 I was elected President of ILAB. It gave me an enormous insight into the international trade, and the different practices and concerns of its members. I would say that there is an enormous difference between the Anglo-American and the European way of doing business. Booksellers in the English-speaking world have important relationships with university libraries and institutional buyers. This connection hardly exists in France and Spain, and is non-existent in Italy. It was so refreshing to attend the 2022 ILAB Congress in Oxford, where we visited private and university collections and were greeted by curators who thanked us for what we were doing!

Since the disastrous thefts from the Biblioteca degli Girolamini in Naples were uncovered in 2013, everything has changed for antiquarian booksellers in Italy. The authorities tend to regard us as thieves. I believe that my election as President of ILAB was very important for my Italian colleagues, and I worked hard to show the real face of the Italian book trade. ALAI is an incredible national association with the highest standards, but the Italian government responded to the Girolamini affair by making our working lives very difficult. For example, an export licence for any book older than 50 years is required, regardless of its commercial value.

The role of ILAB is becoming increasingly important to distinguish its members from the jungle of the market place. We must take care of the vision of the founding members to uphold and improve professional standards in the trade and promote honourable conduct in business. The Committee is unpaid and works extremely hard, coping with different time zones, on behalf of its members.  Since 2022, we participated with the art market in UNESCO consultations on revising the International Code of Ethics for Dealers in Cultural Property. While we support its core principles, there is concern that the proposed revisions might complicate legitimate trade in antiquarian books. Much of UNESCO’S concern is focused on the trade in antiquities, but in the summer of 2024, they invited representatives from ILAB to a meeting in Paris, where we were able to explain the provenance issues affecting books. As they were designed to be circulated, it can be very difficult to establish a complete record of ownership.

When I visit antiquarian bookshops in countries that don’t have a national association, I always see if something can be done to develop a working relationship. In China, I discovered that anything older than twenty years is considered a rare book. It might have the title-page missing, but it’s still valued as a desirable book. A lot of booksellers were hoping that China might gradually follow the example of Japan, which was such a success story for selling Western rare books. The difference is that Japan has a number of universities that were keen to study the roots of European culture, and to acquire the primary sources. I believe that China, with its ancient culture, is more self-contained and inward-looking.

As I have a daughter who would like to stay in the antiquarian book trade, I’m obliged to take an optimistic view of the future. If you’ve been active for a number of years, you will probably do all right, but it has become more difficult for anyone starting now. The new generation tends to focus on having a small number of books, not least because of the cost of storage space. There was a time when I had 1,500 books, and they were all in my shop. Now I have more than 100,000 books - from incunabula to paperbacks - and I keep on buying them. If I hadn’t become a bookseller, I would probably be a collector, but I’ve always known that my life had to be full of books.

Interviewed in January 2025