Produced by Michael Wooff
Franciscus Columna
Charles Nodier (1780-1844)
Perhaps you remember our friend Abbot Lowrich whom we metin Ragusa, in Spalato, in Vienna, in Munich, in Pisa, inBologna, and in Lausanne. He is an excellent fellow, who ismost knowledgeable, but who knows a multitude of things thatwe would be happy to forget if we knew them like he does:the name of the printer of a bad book, the year of birthof a fool and a thousand other details of trivial importance.Abbot Lowrich has the glory of having discovered the realname of Kuicknackius, who was called Starkius, and not,please note, Polycarpus Starkius, who wrote eight finehendecasyllables on the thesis of Kornmannus de ritibus(on rites) and on the thesis of Kornmannus de ritibus etdoctrina scarabeorum (on rites and the doctrine of scarabbeetles), but Martinus Starkius, the man who wrote thirty-twohendecasyllables on fleas. Apart from that, Abbot Lowrichdeserves to be well known and liked; he is witty, has hisheart in the right place, is actively and sincerely obliging,and he adds to these precious qualities a lively and singularimagination, which greatly embellishes his conversation, aslong as it does not fall into enumerating minor biographicaland bibliographical details. I am reconciled to this slightpeccadillo of his, and whenever I meet Abbot Lowrich in myconstant comings and goings across Europe, I run to him fromafar. And I last met him no more than three months ago.
I had arrived at night at the Two Towers Hotel in Treviso, butI had only settled in very late, and I had not set foot in thetown itself. In the morning, as I was going down the stairs,I saw in front of me one of those strange figures whose faces arevisible from every angle. It was wearing a hat that defied alldescription, adjusted to its head in a way that was maladjusted,a red and green tie knotted like a scarf, a good four inches abovethe collar of the jacket on the left-hand side and a good fourinches below it on the right, a pair of trousers brushed in aslipshod manner on one leg while the other leg billowed over theback of a boot with a sort of coquetry. It had with it a hugeirremovable wallet in which lay so many titles of books, so manynotices, so many plans, so many sketches, so many pricelesstreasures for a man of learning that, if he had dropped it, evena rag-and-bone man would not have picked it up. There were notwo ways about it, it was Lowrich. "Lowrich!" I exclaimed, andwe fell into each other's arms.
"I know where you're going," he said, after we had exchanged a fewfriendly words, and then, when I had learned that he too had onlyjust arrived: "You asked for the address of a bookseller, and youwere given that of Apostolo Capoduro who resides in the strada deiSchiavoni. I'm going there too, but I don't hold out much hope,for I've visited his shop twice in ten years and never found booksolder than the novels of Abbot Chiari. That old bookshop has diedthe death, been ruined and sacked by barbarians. But did you havein mind something in particular to ask him for?"
"I'll admit to you," I answered, "that it would pain me to leaveNorthern Italy without taking with me 'The Dream of Poliphilus', ofwhich I have heard it said that it is a most curious object and isto be found in Treviso if it is to be found anywhere."
"If it is to be found anywhere," he exclaimed, "is, to be sure,a prudent rider, for 'The Dream of Poliphilus', or, better still,Friar Francesco Colonna's 'Hypnerotomachia' is a book that oldbibliographers call by the epithet: Albo corvo rarior. All Ican say for sure is that if this white crow is to be found inany