Antonio Martino, legendary Porta Portese bookseller, dies

Antonio Martino, known as Totò, a historic bookseller at Rome's Porta Portese market and at Esquilibri under the porticoes of Piazza Vittorio, has died. His shop "Della Fronda" was a reference for philosophy students at Villa Mirafiori, and later he ran the Libreria Popolare in San Lorenzo. Martino belonged to the last golden generation of Porta Portese booksellers who started in the early 1990s. His stall was on via Angelo Bargoni, near the old train station where the market originated before 1945. The article reflects on the decline of the used-book ecosystem in Italy, where private libraries are disappearing and the number of "strong readers" (defined by ISTAT as those reading 12 books per year) is shrinking. It notes that while Porta Portese has been declared dead cyclically since 1945, it remains alive with its own rules. The market now faces competition from third-party markets and online platforms like eBay, and the supply of quality books has dropped from 90% of estate contents going to Porta Portese to only 20%. Martino once found a 1694 Amsterdam edition of Alessandro Donati's illustrated guide to ancient Roman monuments abandoned in a crate. His death represents a loss of living knowledge and a fragile ecosystem where each disappearing stall takes away a lexicon and an archive.