Napoleon Bonaparte wrote to Joséphine, compensating his lack of height with his words. Goethe let his famous protagonist Werther write to a dear friend, bemoaning about his complicated love to Lotte. Oscar Wilde's indecorous letters to a young intriguing dandy sent him to jail for two years. And the poet Paul Celan kept an affair with Ingeborg Bachmann only by letter.
What seemed to be the most personal, versatile and passionate way of communication back then, has become a dying art today: love letters. Although I love the written word, I have to admit that when it comes to letter writing, I'm more on the postcard - birthday wishes kind of side. But now and then, on a stormy November afternoon - or after reading brilliant correspondences of famous authors, I switch off my cellphone, quit my email program and head over to Carta Pura, in order to buy some paper and pen.
From mould-made paper, envelopes lined with satin-gloss inlays, to exquisite writing utensils, the display fulfills not only all requirements a writer could think of, but also makes all sorts of Do It Yourself dreams come true. Cards, agendas, patterned sheets of paper and boxes, inks, scissors and luxurious stationary you will find here, beautifully arranged, stirring up my attention.
And returning with a delicate set of note paper and envelopes from Carta Pura, the future letter will certainly be of more poetic content than an ordinary text message.