July 21, 2026 · Antonio Romani

A Culture of Collaboration: The Legacy of Lunigiana’s Traveling Booksellers

In the years of the French Revolution and during the Italian Risorgimento, the itinerants carried in their baskets—hidden below the books—various leaflets and manifestos of secret societies conspiring against the ancien régime. Already, their work was looked down on by traditionalists. They were foreigners, and their books ignited who knew what desires in poor people, who were best kept ignorant so they would work without thinking too much. If, in addition to tales of knights and fair ladies, the itinerant sellers carried around publications dealing with politics, then in the eyes of the police these sellers would become a vector for spreading the plague of the written word.