On Friday 24 January 2025, at 5.30 p.m., there will be a presentation of the book ‘Poco mi manca ormai ormai manca per diventare io stesso un bibliofilo. Umberto Saba e l'opera di Francesco Petrarca' by Alessandra Sirugo, at the Spazio Forum of the LET'S Letteratura Trieste Museum, piazza Hortis 4.

The volume is the catalogue of the exhibition held from 18 October to 19 April 2024 at the Petrarchan Civic Museum in Via Madonna del Mare 13, as part of the project ‘Per un anniversario petrarchesco (1374-2024). Francesco Petrarca nell'opera di Umberto Saba’ and realised with the contribution of the Autonomous Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia.

The exhibition and publication celebrate the 650th anniversary of Petrarch's death by ‘measuring’ itself against another important anniversary, the century of life of the ‘Libreria antiquaria Umberto Saba’ in Via San Nicolò 30 and the Trieste poet's activity as an antiquarian.

The map of Francesco Petrarch's influence on the young Saba's poetry is traced from the documents of the Saba Fund of the ‘Manuscript Centre of Modern and Contemporary Authors’ of the University of Pavia, acquired by the poet's son-in-law Lionello Giorni. The profile of Umberto Saba as a bookseller is instead delineated on the basis of the documentary evidence of the Biblioteca-Civica ‘A. Hortis’, the descriptions of the surviving specimens in the Saba Library and the library's recent acquisitions of posthumous specimens. What emerges is a more complete profile of Umberto Saba, not only a poet, but also a competent bibliographer, who trained in the shadow of the most eminent antiquarian booksellers of the first half of the 20th century, to the point of influencing the cultural policy of the ‘A. Hortis’ Civic Library and becoming the publisher of Virgilio Giotti and his own collections.

The catalogue will be presented by Lorenzo Tommasini and Riccardo Cepach, creator and curator of the ‘Let's Literature Trieste Museum’, in the presence of the author.