Vicenza, Mario Calderale's precious personal film library donated to Bertoliana
The widow of Mario Calderale, a great cinema enthusiast and director of Cineforum and co-founder of Segnocinema, has decided in his memory to donate his personal film library to the Bertoliana Civic Library. Over 12 thousand books and many magazines can be read and consulted by the city's many enthusiasts.
Vicenza, Mario Calderale's precious personal film library donated to Bertoliana
An important piece of news for the many fans of the seventh art in Vicenza, and not only. Bertoliana has recently acquired over 12 thousand books and an unknown number of periodicals, but also catalogs of Italian and foreign exhibitions, posters, flyers, DVDs and gadgets, Besides four boxes of reels, some probably screened in Vicenza.
The approximately 500 boxes of film-themed material they are the result of a donation to the library civic by Liliana Carollo, widow of Mario Calderale (12 September 1943 – 18 July 2023).
Calderale was a great cinema enthusiast, for many years director of the Cineforum association of Vicenza and co-founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine Segnocinema, closed after 240 issues in April 2023, a few months before his death. Reference point for film festivals at the Odeon cinema with the Mutual Aid Society, over the years Calderale, with care, had gradually given shape, in his home in Vicenza, ad a specialized cinema library, also including rare volumes and many magazines.
Shortly after his passing, the widow wrote to Bertoliana to express her desire to transfer all this precious material to a place that would allow it to be read and consulted: "For us family - wrote Liliana Carollo - a donation to the city library would be the most welcome arrangement, considering that it is here in Vicenza that my husband has worked for many years to spread the love for cinema and culture in general".
«We immediately accepted the offer of the widow Calderale with gratitude - declares Alberto Galla, president of the board of directors of the civic association of Vicenza -: in fact, her husband's personal library enriches the cinema library already existing in Bertoliana, the result of another donation by the Cineforum association, of which Calderale himself was director».
The inspection carried out last October by the staff responsible for managing the Bertoliana collections revealed the breadth, bibliographical importance and state of conservation – excellent – of the publications accumulated over time by the intellectual from Vicenza, who were thus boxed and sent to contra 'Riale, pending, now, to be catalogued.
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