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All roads to the West go through Vienna. Generous crossroads where the western world fuses with the horizons of eastern Europe and the Germanic spirit seems to have rich confluences with Latinity, the old Austrian metropolis still conveys the same charm that those claras

excerptThat afternoon we took a train to Constanta where, the same evening, we planned to embark on a Romanian ship bound to Constantinople. We arrived in Constanta late at night, so we didn't get to see any of the city or port. All I remember is the very agitated sea.

excerptsThe most dazzling phenomenon of the long Finnish winter night is the polar lights. The fantastical miracles that move profoundly the foreign traveler, they also impress the local people, who watch them in ecstasy like some genuine miracles of nature. The most impressive

Friday, December 10, 1897We leave at 1 o'clock in the morning. Description of the Toro. The fat captain and his unremitting thirst. I go to sleep in the mechanic's cabin (or room, or whatever). Wine and alcohol on the table. The first mechanic is drunk all the

*On Handak street, which meets Anastase street a few steps away from the place where I'd eaten, the bustle was at its height. Although lazy and indifferent when they have nothing to do, Arabs are very much alive and quick when there's a chance of making some money.

*I intended to be concerned with literary form in this series of reportage. I can see I have done better than I expected. At the moment, my problem is preserving the chronological order of events. Our departure from Odessa was marked by a small, insignificant in fact, incident,

Have you ever thought that no collection is being put together about us, the people of today, and that as a consequence we will not be represented in the museums of the future? Has anyone preserved samples of toilet paper of the last decade, has anyone deemed necessary to

Another bibliophilist concerned with theoretical problems related to rare, old book evaluation is Ion Iliescu, Aesthetics professor at the University of Timişoara, the possessor of a rich and valuable collection. Author of many papers on aesthetics (Course of General Aesthetics),

The history of a country's libraries is made not only of facts and events related to large (or smaller) institutions, but also of phenomena that illustrate the taste for books and bibliophily of particular individuals, especially when such libraries come to be included

excerpts IV In his office on the ground floor, Saferian, on a chair and surrounded by four men, all standing, was contemplating an oil portrait, set near them against the back of an ordinary straw chair. It is an Ingres, most certainly, said one of the four, a man with trimmed

Just think that I paid it once, and it pays me off a lifetime instead. * Zambaccian on a canvas by Pallady Having great collectors represents as big a chance for a culture as having great artists. Flourishing arts are hardly imaginable when wealthy art-lovers are missing,

1947. The year of the most despotic deeds of the communist regime come to power in the shadow of the Soviet tanks. The ordeal of the Romanian intellectual elites (and not only) begins. The Slătineanu family find themselves treated like common criminals. The whole family