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Reminiscing about the origins of his lifelong interest in rare books and the Aldine press as a young classicist at Princeton, the renowned bibliophile brings a unique perspective from his thirty-plus-year career as an Aldine collector. Yet, he argues, sale catalogues offer a vantage point on the antiquarian book trade of the time, and therefore can lend significant support to the study of early printed editions - Aldine books in particular - providing unique insights into the changing "notions of rarity and collectability" over time and place (148). Luca Rivali begins the second part of the book with a broad survey of five centuries of Italian Aldine collecting. [Extracted from the article]