A magical place for reading lovers, since 1941
Libreria Polifilo
The craft of books antiquarian endures thanks to the passion of the Vigevani family, which holds priceless printed treasures.
The history of the Jewish family Vigevani goes hand in hand with the great history of Italy since Alberto, the third of four children, an excellent intellect, dreamed of a university career, which the racial laws abruptly interrupted in 1938. Opening an antiquarian bookshop was, therefore, originally a fallback, among other things done in 1941 with the wife’s surname. In 1943 the whole family, except for one brother who became a partisan, escaped to Switzerland where they found protection. From the autumn of 1945 the bookshop reopens and resists until today, with the stubbornness of Alberto and his younger brother Enrico, Giacomo’s father who runs it with Alberto’s cousin Anna. Besides being a great bookseller, able to get his hands on the most valuable books in circulation, Alberto was also a valid writer, awarded with prestigious prizes. His visceral passion for printed writing led him to found the Il Polifilo publishing house in 1959. The trade of the antiquarian bookseller is very particular, because it requires the knowledge of the material contained in the volume, of the context in which it was published, the hands from which it passed, the state of preservation and its meaning in the history of typography.