“Non per emettere sentenze, ma per capire chi era”. Notes in the margin of a disputed book

Abstract

The book that the historian Sergio Luzzatto has dedicated to the biographical-judicial events that have involved, and in part still involve, Marino Massimo De Caro and his countless thefts and falsifications of ancient printed works, has aroused much controversy, both among the employees of the works (antiquarian booksellers, librarians, book historians), both among simple readers, despite the fact that Luzzatto himself, in several parts of his book, had underlined the difficulty and complexity of dealing in a balanced manner with such an ambiguous and elusive personality, but also clever and shrewd, like that of De Caro. The reading of this book has therefore turned into a sort of “tribunal of the people”, now with two defendants: the author himself and De Caro; this may seem paradoxical considering the very niche topic of the book. The paper tries to shed more light on a story that involves, on the one hand, an ambiguous and unedifying character, who nevertheless paid for his crimes, and on the other a serious and qualified historian grappling with a “monster” from having to get away with no way out.