Argentina's capital city hosts antique book fair
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E-mail Xinhua, November 10, 2017
The 2017 Antique Book Fair featuring rare and old books, some dating to the 15th century, kicked off Wednesday.
The five-day book fair, organized by the Argentine Association of Antique Booksellers (ALADA), is held in the Kirchner Cultural Center, a cultural center in downtown Buenos Aires.
"This year, we have a very wide spectrum (of books) at different stands as always. You can see a variety of books ranging from the 15th and 16th centuries to the 20th century," Lucio Aquilanti, owner of the same-named bookstore, told Xinhua.
"Books are defined as antique for a variety of reasons. It could be the paper or the signatures," he added.
Among the valuable antique pieces is the first edition of "Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism," written in 1845 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1868-1874), former Argentine president, journalist and writer.
Other notable volumes include a limited-edition print of "Six Scandinavian Poems" by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, which has only 84 copies, and a print of "In Praise of Folly" by Dutch theologian Desiderius Erasmus in 1641.
Javier Moscarola, bookseller of Libros La Teatral, displayed a notebook dating to 1831 that belonged to Rufina de Cambaceres, mother of Argentine writer and politician Eugenio Cambaceres.
"There are her drawings in the notebook, from which we could also know that she took French classes and, most interesting of all, (there is) a series of cooking recipes ... History is not only about major battles or big political events, but it's also about everyday lives of people who lived in Buenos Aires at the beginning of the 19th century," said Moscarola.
The ALADA gathers more than 40 antique booksellers and specialty bookstores.
The fair attracts mainly collectors of rare and vintage books, maps, photographs and other published materials.
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