do you have an espresso vending machine. Put in your euro. Wait a few minutes, and into a perfectly positioned puny plasctic cup pours your esspresso. Ok, I’ve seen espresso machines before, in libraries and various other places, but this is the real stuff. They take their esspresso very seriously here. They also take their vending machines seriously here. You have your gelato vending machine. You have your water vending machine (fizzy or flat). And don’t forget your cigarette machine! But if you are craving nutella over nicotine, then you have your supermarket vending machine where you can easily get anything from chocolate, to nutella bars, to panino (panino with tuna, chicken, salami, prusciutto, you name it!), twenty different kinds of teeth rotting fruit nectar, and gum. I wouldn’t go for the gum. The flavor lasts about 5 minutes, so an hour later and 1.5 Euro’s down the drain you are out of gum and have a sore jaw. Ya, I’d go for the questionabe panino with tuna, at least you are getting some protein. Or I would take a little break, step outside, sit in a 1000 year old piazza and have glass of wine. mmmmm.
The stats for the day are 2 libraries, 9 hours, 12 libretti visited (4 documented by photographs; 3 onloan, the others ordered for photocopies), and 300 photos… ooo man, that I can call work, spending time in a frescoed library ! Bring on the lasagna!! I started off at the Museo Comunale Musicale because it is only open 4 hours 9-13:00. They also happen to have the most libretti, so naturally it was the best place to begin. I started there also on Thursday morning when I first arrived. I got possibly 100 photos that day of the pages of the libretti (I am transcribing them, and just don’t have the hours to complete it all in the library, plus if I ever want to consult something curious then I have the reproductions with me.) Anyways, apparently that was not ok, because halfway through my second libretti the very helpful librian asked me how many pictures I had taken… I told him truthfully and he said that we were just going to keep that our little secret. but from here on out I couldn’t take any pictures. So the next day they were open, 3 days later, I went right to the capo in charge and told him how essential these photographs are my project. He was really nice and was very interested in my project. Unfortunately is answer was what I had feared: helpful, they don’t feel any photographs I take are of professional quality which means they don’t see my photos serving them in anykind of way. Purtroppo. So I spent the next 3 hours calculating which libretti I needed to see, which ones are worth paying a handsome sum for a 2 week reproduction process, and which ones that have already been photocopied. I worked fast, made my notes, and left tutto al posto just as they were closing down for lunch.
After pranzo I headed down town. My luck was a lot better at the Archiginnasio. There the librarians and I are already on great terms. They love talking to you, helping you fill out the requests for materials. It was an interesting parallel to Italy in a way. The archiginassio is so much larger than the Civico museo, like Bologna to Lucca, and when you are working in a larger biblioteca, like in a larger city, there is just more possibilities and more liberties. And my hopes were realized when I asked if I could make reproductions of the libretti with my own camera, “Ma certo!” But of course! Allright! I had to fill out a quick an easy form with information from my passport, what libretti I wanted to photograph and what my intentions were. The librian that helped me said the director is always a little hesitant, but the librian told the director that I was his friend so there was no fuss. Oh yeeeaaaah, I have an in in the Archiginnasio. But that has been my experience here. The Italians are eager to help others, to share their personal happiness, to make life a little less complicated… Three and a half hours later, 300 ish pages, I hadn’t even gotten through the thick of it yet and my pointer finger was spent. It was just me and my trusty pocket canon camera here, “ok Shelley, steady steady, get the page in the margins, get closer to the page, don’t shake now, you don’t want it to turn out blurry…” These were thoughts going through my head. By page 145 of the fourth libretto I was thinking, “ok memory card, can’t you just be full right now so I can go eat some gelato?!” But it only takes a fraction of a second to remember how much I love this. So there are no complaints, only observations, steps forward, steps backwards, and turns of the page… Day 5 down, 23 to go.
