this desire to understand the past and the present arose through that form of libido that has been dubbed “librido.” Nor could Camporesi savor the aroma of a well-made pie or the stink of a rotting body except through the whiff of paper made from pulped rags, duly watermarked, slightly foxed, and adorned with worm holes, provided it was, as bibliographers would have once said, de la plus insigne rareté.

[Lecture given at the international study conference on Piero Camporesi in March 2008 at Forlì. Then published in Camporesi nel mondo, edited by E. Casali and M. Soffritti (Bologna: Bononia University Press, 2009).

The end