A Gift from Kyriakos Delopoulos to the Library of the Benaki Museum: 292 Books with Autograph Dedications by the Authors

Abstract

This piece has been written to realize two basic aims. The first of these is to acknowledge our debt to a true friend and important donor of the Benaki Museum and once more to express our gratitude to him and let the general public know about this gift. The second is to encourage scholars specializing in the content of the books involved to study them. In June 2006 the donor, Kyriakos Delopoulos, gave the Benaki Museum’s Photographic Archive 4000 photographs (with their negatives), some of which were displayed in a special exhibition set up by the Museum, and in February 2010 he gave the Museum’s Library 292 books, characterized by the hand-written dedications from their authors. This article establishes the catalogue of these books, an unusual collection by dint of the overall presence of autograph dedications, which could very well be anthologized and prove a new source of inspiration to literary historians. Writing with respect and admiration for someone whose contribution to the study of the history of the Greek book has been decisive, it is important to emphasize that in the course of his long life, with its many honours, he has tirelessly pursued an extraordinarily sharply focused interest in books. With his enlightened dedication and his acute powers of thought Kyriakos Delopoulos, first took an interest in printed books, on which he has, of course, published a monograph. At the same time he was collecting and carefully preserving the books given him by various friends, colleagues, artists, scholars, and other such people, together with their autograph dedications.
Hand-written dedications in books constitute a special literary genre, which has not yet been studied and which is of interest to writers, amateur or professional historians and bibliophiles alike. The autograph dedications in this collection are characterized by their originality, the integrity of the micro-text and humour and show the relationship between the dedicator and the dedicatee in their own highly expressive fashion. Some typical examples included in the article show just how wide the range and variety of their content is. This brief article is dedicated to Kyriakos Delopoulos, along with our spontaneous and genuine thanks, as a small thank-you for the wholehearted love he has shown for the Benaki Museum.