“Letter from Bartolomé José Ronco to Arturo Xalambrí (1947-04-11)”.
Document number: UY UM-CEDEI AAX-5.-2-2-2-2, box 10, folder 51.
“Letter from Bartolomé José Ronco to Arturo Xalambrí (1947-04-11)”.
Arturo E. Xalambrí (1888-1975) was born and died in Montevideo, Uruguay. He created libraries, promoted the dissemination of books and numerous cultural and educational initiatives throughout the country, and corresponded with scholars from Spain, Latin America and the Anglo-Saxon world, in particular with important Cervantists.
The bibliographic collection formed by Xalambrí is considered one of the largest Cervantes collections in the Americas, of which several editions of Don Quixote are noteworthy for their antiquity, the beauty of the copies, and editions in various languages, and his archive is a reflection of this prolific intellectual and cultural life.
The highlighted document, selected from the Cervantes correspondence series, is an example of how Don Arturo Xalambrí established a rich and deep friendship with several Cervantists of his time, especially with Bartolomé J. Ronco (Argentina) and Juan Sedó Peris-Mencheta (Spain).
The letter sent by Bartolomé Ronco to Xalambrí in 1947 marks the starting point of a friendship framed by their admiration for Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which would last until Ronco’s death in 1952. The spirit revealed in the Cervantes correspondence reflects a personal reading and interpretation of the aforementioned work, but also a collective and generational one.
AUTHOR OF THE TEXT Natalia Olascoaga Pérez, Librarian of the University Library of the University of Montevideo.
NAME OF IBERARCHIVOS PROJECT:
2018/092. Cervantine Collection “Arturo E. Xalambrí”: organisation, conservation and dissemination of the documents in its archive
Applicant entity: UNIVERSITY OF MONTEVIDEO.
Bibliography:
Ruibal, E. (2018). Cervantophilia in Uruguay: the collection of Arturo Xalambrí. In Festival Internacional Cervantino: Montevideo: el festival de las artes del sur (2nd). Centro Cultural de España.
