Comment du Jour

Expo Milano 2015

"Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life"


In a country celebrated for its food, fashion and design, an Expo to showcase the need to find solutions to combat global hunger is opening on 1 May in Milan, Italy.

A Zero Hunger Challenge is the lofty goal being presented by high-tech pavilions at the Fair which seeks to find solutions for the challenges of food security.

In a seminar and reception sponsored by the Italian Mission and the Magazine Eccellenze Italiane, at the United Nations, officials presented ideas to overcome the undertow of poverty and food insecurity.

Italian UN Ambassador Sebastiano Cardi spoke of seeking solutions and a "Vision how it is possible to end hunger in our lifetimes."   The Ambassador said Expo Milano will host over 140 countries which he described as a "global showcase for ideas and technology."

Prof. Rossana Pace, the director of the Eccellenze Italiane magazine states her publication would raise awareness amongst the millions of visitors regarding the Zero Hunger Challenge.

Eccellenze Italiane is a visually stunning and elegant presentation of Italy's role in the world with a special focus on humanitarian, social values, and United Nations initiatives.

Expo Pavilions are as architecturally diverse, are often edgy in design, and each have a special theme.  Examples the USA Pavilion motto is "American Food 2.0: United to Feed the Planet.  Argentina extols "Argentina Feeds You."  The Czech Republic adds, "Laboratory of Life."

The host country Italy proclaims "The Nursery of Italy."

Twenty million people are expected to visit the six month event.  

Comment du Jour

Antiquarian Book Fair in New York!!!!

The 55th Annual Antiquarian Book Fair returned to Park Avenue's iconic red brick 67th Armory with a wider, more eclectic and international group of dealers.  The cavernous 
Park Avenue Armory offered the perfect setting for scores of American and European booksellers as well as map specialists in a setting which I must admit evoked the past and not too long ago glory of New York City antique shows. 

Scores of French and British dealers as well a a fair number of German, Italian, Netherlands, Portuguese, and Spanish booksellers joined in the amazing presentation of the recent, the rare and the historically important.  Les Trois Islets, a longtime show participant from France is pictured above. 

Both these Graham Greene and Ian Fleming novels, while relatively contemporary (fifty years old) were offered by British bookseller Jonkers Rare Books.  Indeed older volumes from this UK bookseller included Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from 1813, as well as William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies which harks back to 1685.

Another British dealer Leo Cadogan Rare Books returned to the Fair and brought a fine selection of items ranging from Dutch astronomical manuscripts to French and Spanish tracts dealing with both royal and religious matters.  

The seminal legal tract Freedom of the Seas by Hugo Grotius, the Dutch Father of International Law, was a favorite of mine.  This small pamphlet actually, a rare first edition in Latin dating from Leiden in 1609, to this day serves as the basis of international maritime law. The Netherlands dealer Forum & Asher Rare books offered this and a plethora of other hard to fine titles such as the Portuguese Epic 
Os Lusiadas by the poet and explorer Luis de Camoes.  This book from  Lisbon in 1613 is also a rare first edition. 

So many books, so many dealers and so little time!   See you next year!