Exemplary Dedications to Ramiro Ortiz from the Romanian Fund of the University of Padua

Abstract

On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the teaching of Romanian at the University of Padua, we set up a book exhibition at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies with a number of autograph dedications collected within the Romanian fund of the Beato Pellegrino Library. In total, we found 440 notes, including 367 dedications written for Ramiro Ortiz, professor of Italian Language and Literature at the University of Bucharest (1909-1933) and later of Romance Philology (and Romanian) at the University of Padua (1933-1947). Upon his death, Ortiz donated his large Romanian library to the University of Padua, which today constitutes the largest Romanian collection in Italy and one of the most important outside Romania. The exemplary dedications collected, which accompany the gift of the volumes by the authors themselves or by Ortiz's friends, in some cases make it possible to follow the professor's work in setting up the library; others bring to light the ties that existed between Ortiz and his Romanian colleagues, and with which of these the purely academic relations evolved into friendship. The cataloguing of the dedications also reveals a rich gallery of authors and scholars who shared with Ortiz a common interest in Romania. The authors of the dedications number more than 150, among them Eugen Lovinescu, who dedicated more than 30 texts to Ortiz, including his major work, Critice. Despite the obstacles, Ortiz managed to establish an important Romanian collection at the University of Padua, but in particular we can identify him as the founder of the teaching of Romanian in Italy, and of the teaching of Italian in Romania; the dedications found so far highlight the work done over the years and how Ortiz's achievements are still visible today.