Martín de Riquer
Martin de Riquer was a huge productivity wise. When he died in 2013, at age 99, leaving behind more than three hundred publications, including books, encyclopedias, articles, lectures and critical editions. All this could have, among other reasons, because the philologist and historian Barcelona was a well-organized man.
The table shows that commissioned a carpenter friend, with a curved shape and two floors to distribute the texts and documents analyzed, his glasses, his pipe holder with already eroded pipes and the world map. The swivel chair allowed him to quickly turn the table at the library, whose shelves had two fixed paths Olivetti typewriters (a Studio 45 and Lettera 32).
In those pre-computer age, the historian and philologist was drafted in one of the machines, with one hand (he had lost his right arm in the Spanish Civil War), the main text of whatever he was working. The second machine dedicated only to type notes as footnotes, so fundamental in the field of university culture in which he moved. Thus, when delivering the texts to the editor, she spent two distinct bodies. When he had finished his work folded shelves, and the machines disappeared from sight. (At the end of his life he became familiar with the computer and ingenuity applied to compensate for their disability: he devised a system of small weights to hold tight Shift keys.)
The firm that used Riquer at his home in Rosario Street is now installed in the Royal Academy of Bones Lletres, the institution presided for thirty years, based Recasens-the palace was restored and whose “brain architecture” (in the words the current president, Pere Molas) was able to establish. A second home for him. The camera work of the author of the troubadours has been reproduced in one of his favorite places, the tower of the Roman wall. I work protected by walls with two thousand years, they say, it stimulated.
Riquer’s children (two of which, the Borja and Isabel historians, scholars are themselves rather than the house) made donation along with a part of the personal library of the scholar, 5,000 books that comprise “the best private collection dedicated to Medieval literature is in the state, “according Borja de Riquer. Texts and studies on the Provençal world, matter of Britain and the French epic, including numerous works in Occitan. An extensive literature on Don Quixote, to which he devoted so many studies, and on the figure of Cervantes. Ramon Llull, Ausiàs March and medieval Catalan production; English literature of the period. Volumes have come together with a collection of reprints and magazines (Le Moyen Âge, Culture neoLatin, Speculum, Romance Philology, Uiversitaris Estudis Catalans, estudis romànics, Romania …), which occupied 115 boxes and are now available scholars who want to consult them. Transportation, documentation and installation of this fund Bones Lletres has received a grant from the Caixa and the Department of Justice of the Generalitat, which protects the Catalan schools and whose current CEO, Jordi Cabré, was present on the spot Opening yesterday.
The richness of the library riqueriana should, first of all, he liked to work at home and wanted to hand the references needed. The books were seized, Borja de Riquer account of successive addresses, where “each time there were more spaces occupied by shelves full: the office, hallways, living room, a bedroom”. And finally the garage. “Instead of placing cars seemed more useful to place books.” His family, they traveled through Europe, they carried of orders for large libraries: Nizet in Paris, or Dillons Foyles in London, Tombolini in Rome.
But while a lot of money invested in these purchases, with books was “a pragmatic relationship,” according to his disciple Lola Badia. And when, in the seventies, photocopying was introduced, he yielded smooth students rare and valuable volumes to have them reproduce. Many of these copies still circulate among those who studied with him.
Courtesy Car Service Barcelona
EXECUTIVE CHAUFFEUR BARCELONA 