Filippi Editore
May. 16th, 2005 10:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lollardfishWhen I lived in Venice and did my research, by sheer chance, I happened to live next door to the best bookstore in Venice. They published Venetian sources, old prints, and other arcana of Venetian culture. Mom and pop (Signor e Signora Filippi) ran one store, next to me, and their son ran the other. Like so much of Italian publishing, if you wanted to buy it, you had to buy it at their store.
Within a week or so of my arrival, I had become friendly with la signora (who saw me as a nice Catholic american boy who spoke Italian and was researching the Venetian church. And since at least some of that was true, why bring up the whole complication of being a Unitarian-Universalist American Jew). She corrected my Italian, periodically sold me books, thanked me when I brought visiting friends there to buy old prints of Venice (or prints of old prints), and was one of my 'Venetian mothers' (along with the waitress and owner of Alla Carampane). Signor Filippi took about three months to become friendly (I remember the first time I walked into his shop, he was shouting at someone that he did not speak Italian, he spoke Latin!). A gruff man, at least to outsiders and foreigners, his knowledge of Venice's history, culture, and his sheer pride of place made the eventual opening up all the more priceless.
I just learned Signor Fillipi died this last March or April. I will never think of Venice without remembering that wonderful store of treasures, both in its products to sell and the people who owned it.
Within a week or so of my arrival, I had become friendly with la signora (who saw me as a nice Catholic american boy who spoke Italian and was researching the Venetian church. And since at least some of that was true, why bring up the whole complication of being a Unitarian-Universalist American Jew). She corrected my Italian, periodically sold me books, thanked me when I brought visiting friends there to buy old prints of Venice (or prints of old prints), and was one of my 'Venetian mothers' (along with the waitress and owner of Alla Carampane). Signor Filippi took about three months to become friendly (I remember the first time I walked into his shop, he was shouting at someone that he did not speak Italian, he spoke Latin!). A gruff man, at least to outsiders and foreigners, his knowledge of Venice's history, culture, and his sheer pride of place made the eventual opening up all the more priceless.
I just learned Signor Fillipi died this last March or April. I will never think of Venice without remembering that wonderful store of treasures, both in its products to sell and the people who owned it.
