Intriguing, scholarly, visually arresting, and designed and printed to Bodoni's standards, this title belongs on the shelf of any self-respecting bibliophile. And especially, pages from his typographic masterpiece, the Manuale Tipografico, painstakingly prepared by his wife Ghitta, posthumously published in two volumes, and displaying the myriad typefaces in multiple sizes that Bodoni had designed and engraved over a long and prolific career.

The illustrations-of the city, of the press, of the types and matrices-are compelling enough, but most striking are the pages from the books he designed. Even the food gets its due (and in savory detail). This fine book goes beyond Bodoni's capacity as a printer it examines the life and times in which he lived, the turbulent and always fragile political climate, the fascinating cast of characters that enlivened the ducal court, the impressive list of visitors making the pilgrim- age to Parma, and the unique position Parma occupied, politically Italian but very much French in terms of taste and culture. And all of it making use of the typefaces he personally designed and engraved. He remained in Parma, overseeing a vast variety of printing, some of it pedestrian, but much of it glorious. His life changed when in 1768 at age 28 he was invited by the young Duke of Parma to abandon Rome for that very French city to establish and direct the ducal press. Even then, his real talent, indeed his genius, lay in type design and punchcutting, especially of the exotic foreign alphabets needed by the papal office to spread the faith. There, under the sponsorship of Ruggieri, his close friend, mentor, and protector, he learned all aspects of the printing craft. Born to a printing family in the small foothill town of Saluzzo, he left his comfortable life to travel to Rome in 1758 where he served as an apprentice of Cardinal Spinelli at the Propaganda Fide press.

This is the first English-language biography of the relentlessly ambitious and incomparably talented printer Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813).

A lively, lavishly illustrated biography of the great printer Bodoni, vividly describing his work, life, and times while justifying his reputation as the 'prince of typographers.'

Giambattista bodoni biography