La guerra dei libri. Marie-Louis Polain e l'incunabolistica tra Otto e Novecento

The contribution re-examines the life and career of Marie-Louis Polain and opens up some fresh insights into his contribution to incunabula studies and his relations with other incunabulists, notably with Konrad Haebler. A consideration follows of the research tools which Polain used; in particular the fate of his own private library, now part of the Municipal Library in Versailles, is examined. Here the various bibliographical repertoires he used are housed, including those he inherited from Marie Pellechet, long thought to be lost, which are heavily annotated both by Pellechet and Polain himself and thus provide an exceptional source for our understanding of the methods of work of these two leading exponents of the great age of incunabula studies.