11 November 2013

André Desguine: Cimetière de Cachan #2

André Desguine (1902–81) left his private library of 55,000 books to the département of Hauts-de-Seine. He had collected them over the years from bouqinistes on the banks of the Seine, bookshops, auctions, and from other countries, particularly Italy. His wish was to avoid dispersal of them, and for the general public to share this treasure.

Desguine's special interest was in the 16th century, and he edited Ronsard's Les Bacchanales ou le Folastrissime voyage d'Hercueil près Paris, contributed to the journal Gallia and the Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé. The Bibliothèque André-Desguine was founded in Nanterre in 1983 and has been open to the public since 1988.

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