La Parola Scritta

XVI Centuries of Italian Culture in Ink

 
In honor of the 2013 Year of Italian Culture in the United States, this exhibition includes books from the 15th through the 19th century celebrating Italian contributions to printing, poetry, theater, music, geography, mathematics, botany, astronomy, anatomy, law, typography, dance, travel and more. Many of the books in this exhibition are first editions, including the first printed edition of Euclid’s Geometry (Venice, 1482) and Galileo’s Dialogo (Florence, 1632). The reception for this exhibition included hands-on displays of medieval manuscripts and 20th century artists’ books. Those books are included in the online exhibition.
 
Euclid
Venice, Erhardt Ratdolt, 1482
QA31 E86 E5 1482
 
This is the editio princeps, or first printed edition, of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry, the oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today. The Greek mathematician Euclid compiled the work around 300 BC. In 1482, Erhardt Ratdolt, famous for his beautifully produced scientific books, printed eight works – Euclid’s Elements among them. German Erhard Ratdolt ran a printshop in Venice from 1476 to 1486. Elements is the first printed book to contain geometrical figures. An elegant three-sided wooden block and a white-vine style woodcut initial, several hundred small ornamental capitals, and over four hundred and twenty carefully designed and perfectly printed marginal diagrams, confirm its standing as a landmark publication. The page layout, particularly the first page, is an outstanding example of Ratdolt’s consideration of the overall look and readability of his work. Note the closeness of the type to the initial and the close set of the text page. For the text, Ratdolt used a type called “rotunda” or “round-text.” The Italian writing-masters called this littera moderna to distinguish it from textura, blackletter, type. Ratdolt’s book was based on the standard Euclid of the later Middle ages: Adelard of Bath’s twelfth-century translation from the Arabic, revised in the following century by Campanus of Novara (d. 1296). In his dedication to this edition, Ratdolt suggested that the scarcity of printed mathematical works was due to the problems involved in printing the geometrical diagrams. He then happily announced that he had discovered a method of printing them as easily as the text. He did not elaborate upon this method, but it most likely involved the use of type-metal rule arrangements that could be printed along with the text.
 
Abrham ben Meir Ibn Ezra (1092-1167)
Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 1485
QB26 I32 1485
 
Editio princips. Abraham ibn Ezra was born in Toledo, Spain, where he studied astrology, math, grammar, philosophy, theology, medicine and poetry. He was fluent in Hebrew and Arabic. Ibn Ezra lived at a time when Spain, under Muslim rule, had a highly developed culture influenced equally by Christian, Islamic, and Jewish sensitivities. Ibn Ezra, a Jew, left Spain in middle age and spent the last thirty years of his life traveling throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia. His Book of the Nativities was one of eight astrological treatises written by him in 1148. The work describes the planetary influences upon man’s fate at the time of his birth. The University of Padua, near Venice, had a well-established school of astronomy. Peter D’Abano, revered scholar at the school, translated Ibn Ezra’s astrological treatise. D’Abano died in 1316, just before he was to be tried by the Inquisition for wizardry. His body was publicly burnt. Also contained in this edition is an essay by Henry Bates written in the thirteenth century about the astrolabe. Bates was a contemporary of D’Abano’s. Erhard Ratdolt is considered one of the best printers of the incunabula period. He used high-quality paper, printed clearly and legibly, and contracted with scholars to read and correct texts before he printed them. Ratdolt, an entrepreneur determined to make a quality product, often turned to the University of Padua for scholars cum editors.
  Abrham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, De natiutatibus, 1485  
 
 
Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine
Venice, Italy: Impressum Venetiis per Paganinus de Paganinis Brixianum, anno Domini M. CCCC.LXXVII, die. XXVI Maij.
BR65 A84 1487
 
A collection of sixty sermons followed by six brief miscellaneous texts. The first fifty-nine sermons have mostly to do with the proper way of life for monks and priests, with some exegetical sermons interspersed. Sermon sixty is on St. Augustine’s mother, Monica. This is the second book printed by Paganini. Paganini de Paganinis of Brescia set up his presses in Venice, issuing his first book in 1487. He continued printing until 1490. Paganini was one of a family of printers. He opened his print shop in 1485 in partnership, but was sole proprietor in 1487 to 1490. He helped two of his brothers set up shop in 1489. They ran their presses until 1499. There is some confusion over books under the imprint Paganinis in Venice after this time. In 1492, Paganini requested permission to print the Bible, suggesting a large undertaking that would cost 4,000 ducats. His Bible was to have a glossary and commentary. This edition was never printed. This same Paganini was the first to print the Qur’an in Arabic characters, in 1517. The edition was ordered to be destroyed by the Pope. Paganini’s son Allesandro had a print shop in Toscolano and later in Venice. It is likely that Allesandro is the Paganini who printed a well-known copy of Euclid’s Geometry in 1509, in Venice, but some scholars attribute this edition to his father. In this edition, the printer left the initial letters blank for the illuminator. Printed in double columns. Type is Gothic. University of Utah copy is fully rubricated with eight leaves of manuscript at the end in the form of an index produced by Frater Yeremitas. This copy also contains a few marginal notes. From the Kenneth Lawrence Ott Collection donated to the Okanagan County Museum, Washington.
Strabo
Venetiis, in aedibvs Aldi, et Andreae soceri, 1516
First printed edition of the original Greek text
G87 S86 1516
 
Strabo’s Geographia was the first attempt to collect all the geographical knowledge available and to compose a general treatise on geography.The impact of early printers on their world was extraordinary. The works Aldus Manutius chose to print reflected the great diversity of the interests of his day. He printed Greek and Latin classical texts, grammars, religious writings, secular writings, political and scientific writings, histories, and geographies. But Aldus influenced his world with his craft as well as his scholarly pursuits. His work was recognized for its attractive and readable typography, clean lines and fine design. He designed and cut the first complete font of the Greek alphabet. He helped design a type after Italian cursive script said to be based upon the handwriting of Petrarch. This was the first italic font used in books. Well aware of the power of the press, he was particularly concerned with producing books of small format and low cost for the benefit of students.
 
Luigi Bigi Pittorio (ca. 1455 – ca. 1520)
Venetiis: per Georgium de Rusconibus, 1520
PA8128 P57 1520
 
Nearly unknown today, Ludovico Pittorio was a well-respected poet in his time. His works were specifically recommended to be read by lay confraternities, and contemporary poets dedicated their poetry to him. Georgio Rusconi da Milano (Georgius de Rusconibus Mediolanensis) was an exemplary humanist printer. His editions included a dictionary, but were focused primarily on classical authors like Ovid, Livy, Plutarch, Cicero and Quintilian. He also published works by Boccaccio and Erasmus. Rusconi began working with editors for his publications at least as early as 1503. He sometimes reprinted other printer’s works, without modifying the existing editorship. His works show no consistent standards of textual criticism or linguistic revision, and although he did occasionally correct some errors, he also replaced errors with still others. Later editions from Rusconi show that he often worked closely with contemporary authors and editors, to the extent of having one, Nicolo Degli Agostini, insert a plea to his readers stressing his need to recoup his expenses through sales if he were to continue to publish. In one book printed by Rusconi, Agostini advises the reader to “lend this one to nobody, but…make him buy it.” Rusconi began his printing career at least as early as 1500 when he went into partnership with Manfredus de Bonellis de Monteferrat, and continued printing until 1522, after which his heirs continued his press. His printer’s device was most often the common orb and double cross over his initials (G.R.M). This device is found in most of his publications between 1501 and 1521. Occasionally, Rusconi used woodcut representations of St. George the Dragon Slayer, possibly in part as an illusion to his own first name. It is likely that he borrowed the device from a 1493 edition of the story of St. George published by his soon-to-be partner, Bonellis. At any rate, the image was popular at the time, used by such painters and sculptors as Raphael and Tintoretto. Like many printing houses of the time, Rusconi’s business was a family affair. Two of his brothers published at least one book separately, using the orb and double cross device over their own initials. His sons published under his imprint after his death. Rusconi’s widow, Helisabeth de Rusconibus, continued to print in Venice, using her name on imprints as late as 1527. Rusconi’s house closed in the same year, a victim, as were others, of a prolonged period of political turmoil in Venice. Bound with the author’s Gorrica. Venice, 1520. Some contemporary manuscript markings.
 
 
Pietro Alcinio
Venetiis: in aedivus Aldi et Andreae Asulani soceri, mense novembri 1522
PA8450 A6 M43 1522
 
Pietro Alcinio was employed by Aldus Manutius as a corrector for the Aldine press. When Alcinio's patron, Giulio de' Medici became pope in 1523 under the title of Clement VII, Alcinio followed him to Rome. In 1591, Alcinio published a Latin translation of several of the works of Aristotle, proved by other scholarship to be quite inaccurate. When Medices legatus was published, Alcinio was accused of plagiarism by his enemy Paulus Manutius, son of Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Aldine press. Paulus was particularly enamored of Cicero. Paulus Manutius’ might be forgiven. Alcinio’s contemporaries accused him of haughtiness, uncouth manners, vanity, and licentiousness. Vignette (printer’s device) on title-page and verso of last leaf.
  Cornelius Tacitus, Cornelius tacitus exacta cura recognitus, 1534
 
Cornelius Tacitus
Venice: In aedibus haeredum A. Manutii et A. Asulanie soceri, 1534
PA6705 A2 1534
 
Cornelius Tacitus is regarded as one of the greatest historians in Roman history. His surviving works provide a vivid picture of the events of the tyrannical rule of his time. His writing style was succinct and pointed. Title-page contains Aldine press mark.
I SEI PRIMI LIBRI DELL'ENEIDE DI VIRGILIO TRADOTTI A PIV ILLVSTRE ET HONORATE DONNE ... 
Virgil
In Venetia: G. Paduano, 1541-1543
PA6802 A1 1541
 
Many editions of the Aeneid were printed by Venetian presses in the 1540s. Printed in octavo format, it was quite common for miscellanies from two or more editions to be bound together. This composite contains Books I-V from editions printed in Venice by Andrea Arrivabene, 1540-41; Book VI from an edition printed in Venice by Giovannie Padavano, Niccolo Zoppino, and Federico Torresano in 1544. Book IV of this copy has marginalia in a contemporary hand, including rustic drawings of pointing hands, or, manicules. Four wood engravings illustrate Book VI, which also has an index.
 
Euclid
Venetia: Venturino Roffinelli, 1543
First printing in Italian
QA31 E836 1543
 
Niccolo Fontana Tartaglia (1500 – 1557) was born in Brescia. In 1512 the French army killed 46,000 residents in that city. Tartaglia was severely wounded and, for the rest of his life, spoke with difficulty due to his wounds. The word tartaglia means “stammerer.” Tartaglia was self-taught in mathematics, but by 1516 he was teaching mathematics in Verona. In 1534 he moved to Venice. Tartaglia was a contemporary of Girolamo Cardano. The two had a stormy relationship. Cardano established himself as the world’s leading mathematician after publishing a book in which he revealed Tartaglia’s solution to solving cubics, something he had sworn to Tartaglia he would not do. Tartaglia was also an engineer and surveyor. In these capacities he designed fortifications. He applied mathematics to a study of the paths of cannonballs, work later confirmed by Galileo's studies on falling bodies. Tartaglia made this first translation of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry into Italian, also the first translation of Euclid into a modern European language. Before this translation, Euclid was taught from two Latin translations taken from an Arabic source. These translations contained errors. Tartaglia based his translation on a Latin translation taken from an uncorrupted Greek text and corrected these mistakes. His commentary on the text was also very useful.
 
Pierfrancesco Giambullari (1495-1555).
In Firenze: Per Neri Dortelata, 1544
First edition
PQ4437 G53 1544
 
The son of poet Bernardo Giambullari and the product of a thoroughly humanist education, Francesco Giambullari became secretary to Alfonsa Orsina, the widow of Piero de Lorenzo de’ Medici. Her patronage gained him lucrative positions at the parish church in Careggi and as chaplain of Santa Maria Della Compagnia di Libbiano in Volterra. In 1550, he became librarian at the library of Florence, the first to hold this position. Giambullari’s work on the Florentine language was part of his effort to validate the writings of Dante. He began this work in 1538 and his reputation as a Dante scholar quickly grew. Giambullari was a staunch supporter of peculiar and rather obscure movement to support Florentine culture and language. This treatise on Dante’s “Inferno” includes an alphabet he designed to teach Florentine pronunciation. Giambullari claimed that the Florentine language was not derived directly from Latin, but rather had its roots in Aramaic via Etruscan. Printer “Neri Dortelata” was a pseudonym for one of Giambullari’s friends and supporters of his promotion of modern spoken Florentine based on this theory. Dortelata was particularly creative in his printing of "De’l sito, forma, & misure dello Inferno di Dante," a lecture on the location and shape of Dante’s Inferno. Dortelata, who used pre-existing type sets, used different typefaces to represent the sound of Giambullari’s proposed pronunciation of Florentine.
 
Euclid
In Roma: Antonia Blado Asolano, 1545
QA33 E8 1545
 
This edition of one of Euclid’s works on the theory of arithmetic was printed in italic by the famous printer and publisher, Antonio Blado. Blado worked in Rome from 1515 to 1567. The basis of italic type was the cursive humanist script and the script of the Papal chancery. Punch-cutter Francesco Griffo worked with printer Aldus Manutius in Venice around 1500, developing an italic. Around 1520, Blado worked with printer Ludovico Arrighi to develop an italic based on the Papal chancery. Blado’s reputation rests mainly on his use of italic types. He influenced the work of the best Italian printers to come. A few years after the publication of this edition, Blado was appointed Tipografo Camerale, or, printer to the Apostolic Chamber. In this edition, a woodcut portrait of Euclid replaces the Blado device of the eagle.
 

ARBA' VE-'ESRIM ... 
Venice: Daniel Bomberg, 1547-49
Third edition
BS715 1547
 
Daniel Bomberg was one of the first Christian printers of Hebrew books. Bomberg operated a press in Venice, investing four million gold ducats into his printing house. In 1516, Bomberg printed his first edition of the Rabbinic Bible. At that time there was a growing interest in the Hebrew language and the Old Testament among Christian scholars. Bomberg also recognized a market for Hebrew texts among Jews in Italy as the population grew with an influx of Spanish and Portuguese Jewish exiles. Bomberg’s publications provided the basis for the revival of western Semitic scholarship and studies both in Hebrew and Arabic. In all, Bomberg printed more than two hundred books in Hebrew, known for their outstanding scholasticism, beautiful paper, and typographical excellence. Bomberg’s placement of commentary surrounding the text (a popular early printing style based upon manuscript glosses) in his editions of the Bible influenced the appearance of many other types of Jewish literature. The commentary in Bomberg’s Rabbinic Bible appears to swallow the biblical text. Bomberg’s Bible was edited and accompanied by commentaries by some of the best Jewish scholars, including Rashi, ibn Ezra and ben Asher. Bomberg made use of as many manuscripts of the Old Testament as possible, and influenced many of the Old Testament translations by Reformation-era Biblical scholars. This copy contains several instances of Italian censure, where pens were used to strike out lines of commentary considered blasphemous, and the signatures of those censors. Each censor, in turn, found different passages by the commentators that did not agree with then-accepted New Testament theology. The University of Utah copy was part of a large private collection owned for centuries by one family. Parts of the collection were scattered across Europe after the family fled from Spain. This Bible, however, remained in the family and was brought to Utah from Latvia when family members migrated in 1935. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. David Alder of Salt Lake City, Nov. 1984.
 
Pietro Bembo (1470-1547).
Roma: Stampate per Valerio Dorico et Luigi fratelli, 1548
First edition
PQ4608 A7 1548
 
Pietro Bembo was educated by his father, a man of some influence in the Venetian republic. In 1513, Bembo became secretary to Pope Leo X in Rome. After Leo’s death in 1521, Bembo retired to Padua where he pursued his intense literary interests. He wrote Latin lyric poetry and then turned to the vernacular, imitating the poetry of Petrach. A collection of his poetry was printed in 1530. Other works were printed throughout his lifetime. He is most remembered for the love letters that he exchanged with Lucrezia Borgia, although many scholars insist that the relationship was always platonic. He was a main character in Baldasarre Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. This first edition of the first volumes of his letters, published one year after his death was printed with the privilege of Paolo III by the Dorico brothers. At the same time they republished the Rime, printing it in a refined rounded italic which distinguished their work from more commercial Venetian editions. The typeface was designed by Lodovico de gh Arrighi. The second volume of Bembo’s letters was printed two years later in Venice, the third and fourth two years after that, also in Venice.
 
Giambattista Cinzio Giraldi(1504-1573)
Vinegia: appresso Gabriel de’ Ferrari, 1548
PQ4624 F5
 
Giovanni Battista Giraldi, an Italian novelist and poet, added “Cinthio,” a nickname, to his name. He is usually referred to by that name. In 1525, Giraldi became professor of natural philosophy at the university at Ferrara, where he was born and educated. Twelve years later he became the university’s chair of belles-lettres. In 1560, he had a literary quarrel with his patron Alfonso II d’Este, resulting in loss of favor. He moved to Mondovi and taught literature there until 1568. He was asked to be the chair of rhetoric at Pavia, where he remained until 1573 when poor health forced him to return to Ferrara, where he died. Cinthio wrote the epic Ercole (1557), and nine tragedies. He also wrote a book of conduct, in the company of Castiglione and others, aimed at educating the courtier, gentleman, or prince in creating an ideal character. He was influenced by the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation in his literary idealogy, but his dramatic works were rather experimental (not to mention gruesome), anticipating modern European theater. His writings were published in many editions and translated into French and Spanish. Some of Giraldi’s published stories were used by Shakespeare as inspiration for the plots of “Measure for Measure” and “Othello.” Speculation is that the latter reached Shakespeare through a French translation. Printer Gabriele Giolito de’Ferrai (c. 1508-1578) was one of the earliest publishers of literature in vernacular Italian. In 1523 he and his father established the “Libraria della Fenice” (Bookshop of the Phoenix), a printing press and bookshop in an area of Venice known as one of the major centers of printing. Gabriele added shops in Naples, Bologna and Ferrara. His produced a mix of classical and contemporary literature, supporting the work of new writers. He dedicated himself to publishing works in Italian rather than Latin and Greek, languages unfamiliar to the non-scholastic community. In 1555, he published a celebrated edition of Dante Alighieri’s Commedia, for the first time using the title Divina Commedia. His printer’s device, of which there were several variations, was that of a phoenix emerging from flames atop a globe with his initials, G. G. F. At his death, his sons, Giovanni the Younger and Giovanni Paolo continued this press until 1606.
 
Aristotle
In Firenze: Appresso Lorenzo Torrentino Impressor’ Ducale, 1549
First edition of this translation
PN173 A73 S44 1549
 
This is the first Italian translation of Aristotle’s Poetics and the second of his Rhetoric, following a translation published in 1548 by Giocomo Fabriano. Demand was so high that the second edition was published only two years after the first. Bernardo Segni (1504-1558) studied Greek and Latin at Padua. He served for many years as a civil servant, working in the service of his maternal uncle, Niccolo Capponis, during which time he gathered information for his best work, Storie Fiorentine dall’anno MDXXVII, al. MDLV. His reputation for fine scholarship brought him to the attention of Cosimo I de Medici (1519-1574), who sent him on many diplomatic missions. Segni’s diplomatic missions included a meeting with the brother of Charles V, Ferdinand, King of Rome. He had reputation for level-headed thinking. He produced a number of translations of Aristotle’s works into Italian, printed by Lorenzo Torrentino in Florence. Bringing the work of Aristotle into print, in translation into the vernacular, no less, was a mission of Renaissance humanism, glorifying ancient works from the Classical world to a new world of rapid and broad dispersal of thought that had long been restricted to the sphere of Roman Catholic church clergy and a small group of academics. In this work, Rettorica, et poetica, Aristotle stated that there are two truths: poetic and historical. Dedication to Cosimo I de Medici. Woodcut historiated initials.
 

DE LA LINGUA CHE SI PARLA & SCRIUE IN FIRENZA ... 
Pierfrancesco Giambullari (1495-1555)
Firenze: Torrentino, 1551
PC1073 G53 1551
 
Printer Lorenzo Torrentino (1499-1563) was a Dutch-Italian humanist and printer for Cosimo, Duke of Florence. He was born in the Netherlands into a wealthy family. After his studies, he began working for printers and booksellers in Antwerp, Basel, Lyon, Venice and Bologna. There, he worked as a bookseller with Arnoldus Arlenius, a well-known and well-respected Greek scholar. They imported books in Greek and Latin from France and Germany, selling them throughout Italy. They also acted as liaisons between authors and printers. After the death of Filippo Giunta, the great Florentian pressman, printing in Florence deteriorated from an art to a trade. Duke Cosimo I brought Torrentino to Florence to improve the quality of printing in his city. In 1577 Torrentino opened his own press in Florence. He produced nearly two hundred and seventy-five editions. His work was of high quality and his reputation and business flourished. In 1562 he became director of a type foundry. His press was managed by his sons. His careful and artful typographic skills enabled him to contribute to the development of Italian languages. Like the best printers of the era, Torrentino carried equally the roles of editor, translator and commentator. University of Utah copy gift of Ivie J. and Jeanne M. Nielson.
 

 
Pietro Bembo (1470-1547)
Venice: Gualtero Scotto, 1552
First edition in Italian translation
DG677 A2 B43
 
Venice’s Council of Ten commissioned Pietro Bembo to write a history of the city. Covering the period 1487-1513, the work first appeared in Latin in 1551 as a folio production of the Aldines, with part of the edition having been printed for Gualatero Scotto and bearing his Hermes and Athena device. This first edition of the history in Italian translation does not seem to have had Aldine Press involvement, all known copies bearing only the Scotto device on the title-page and on the verso of the final leaf. Two interesting aspects of the text are the life of Bembo that occupies leaves five to fourteen of the first section of unnumbered leaves and chapter VI, which is dedicated to America and the Spanish discovery and exploration of it. Bembo claimed that this pivotal event in world history was the proximate cause for the decline of Venice as a major center of commerce.
RHETORTICORUM AD C HERENNIM LIBRI III ... 
Venetiis: Apud Paulum Manutium, Aldi filium, 1554
PA 6304 R7 1554
 
The “Ad Herennium” is a treatise on oratory written around 86-82 BC, usually attributed to Cornificius, and sometimes, erroneously, to Cicero. Certainly, Cicero made use of it in his “De Inventione,” but he never made reference to it as one of his own writings. The work was modeled on Hellenistic rhetorical writing and is an interesting early extant example of Latin prose, the oldest known piece of Latin writing to exist in its entirety. It was first printed in Venice in 1470 by Nicolaus Jensen. This is the third Aldus edition of the complete rhetorical works of Cicero, including the anonymous “Ad Herennim,” edited and corrected by Cicero scholar Paulus Manutius. The first Aldus edition appeared in 1546 and was reprinted in 1550. Bound with Ciceronis De officiis libri tres; Cato maior,uel, De senectute: Laelius, uel, De amicitia: Paradox Stoicorum sex;…Printers device on title-page. From the Kenneth Lawrence Ott Collection donated to the Okanagan County Museum, Washington.
 

M. TULLI CICERONIS ORATIONUM PARS I. [-III] CUM ... 
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE)
Venetiis : Apud Paulum Manutium, Aldi filium, MDLIII…etc. (1554-1559)
PA6279 A2 1554
 
Paoli Manutii moved his father’s famous Aldine Press from a concentration on ancient Greek texts, his father’s love, to a concentration on classical Latin texts, his own love. In particular, Paoli maintained a lifelong passion for Cicero. He restored the reputation of the Aldine Press by publishing scholarly editions of Cicero’s letters and orations. Much of the correcting and editing was his own. He continued with his work on Cicero by adding commentary. He published his first edition of Cicero’s work in 1540, adding another edition in 1547. This is the first complete edition of Cicero’s orations, published in three volumes. From the Kenneth Lawrence Ott Collection donated to the Okanangan County Museum, Washington.
 
Sebastiano Fausto da Longiano (1502-1565)
Venice: [Gio. Griffo, ad Instanza di Lodovico delle Avanzil], 1556
First edition
PN241 F38 1556
 
Sebastiano Fausto was a translator and author. In 1532 he produced a well-received edition of Petrarch with commentaries and, later, a vernacular edition of Erasmus’ Apothegms. Dialogo is his treatise on rules for rhetorical translation, based on Cicero’s writings on the subject. Fausto built on Cicero’s theories with commentary. He divided the process of translation into two distinct, tiered elements. First, “Argument, Arrangement and Elocution”: The translator as reader. Second, “Composition, Dignity and Number”: the Reader becomes Writer. Fausto recognized that comprehension and understanding of language is always relative. In the end a structured analysis of any work for translation gives way to a sense of the work as much as the reproduction of words and word order. In other words, a purely scientific translation based solely upon formal characteristics will not fill the bill: Translation also calls for a humanistic approach. Woodcut device on title-page. Bound in contemporary limp vellum with a small, circular coat-of-arms stamped on the front cover. Title in manuscript on spine.
 
Pietro Massolo (1520-1590)
Bologna: per Antonio Manutio, 1557
PQ4630 M23 A6 1557
 
Pietro Massolo, born in Venice, was a monk at Monte Cassino. This volume of poetry is dedicated to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, an influential friend of the Manutius family and the Aldine Press. Antonio Manutio (d. 1559) sometimes combined his own imprint with that of the Sons of Aldus. In this book, the title-page has a small variant of the Sons of Aldus device with different details in the elaborate surround. The figure of the dolphin is reversed. Antonio published only a few works, all of which appear to have been strictly of personal interest to him. When Antonio started his press, he required the help of his older brother Paulus (Aldus’s third son). Paulus was unhappy about the imposition, writing that he was “on the verge of madness and bankruptcy.” The last years of Antonio’s life were years of contention between the two.
 
Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577)
Venetiis: in officina Erasmiana, Vincentij Valgrisij, 1558
QK41 M3 1558
 
Pietro Andrea Mattioli, the son of a physician, became a physician himself after studying in Padua. He served in the court of Ferdinand I and then Maximilian II in Prague. He published an examination of the origins and treatment of syphilis in which he was one of the first to recommend mercury as a cure. This is the first edition of the Apologia and the second printing of Mattioli’s herbal, which became the standard book on medical botany for European physicians during the second half of the sixteenth century. The second printing was substantially revised and enlarged and includes the woodcuts used in the first printing as well as over one hundred new cuts based on the drawings of Giorgio Liberale. New observations, descriptions of new plants, and its conception and execution as a practical scientific treatise, quickly set this work aside from others in botanical literature. Printed in italic, Roman, and Greek type, with historiated woodcut initials, and a woodcut printer’s device. Brown morocco backed paste paper covers heavy, original boards. A contemporary reader glossed the text with citations to classical and contemporary sources like Hippocrates. A later owner scattered a few German notes throughout and filled the final two leaves with pharmaceutical recipes in German. Past owners included Gottfried Heilius and Caspar Suevus who bought the book from Heilius’ library.
 
Ignazio Danti (1537-1586)
Firenze: Appresso I Giunti, 1569
First edition
QB41 S3
 
Ignazio Danti was born into a family of artists and scholars. His father and grandfather were architects. His father constructed astronomical and surveying instruments. His aunt, Teodora, published a work on Euclid’s Elements and books on art. His brother was a sculptor. As a young man, Danti entered the Dominican order, studying philosophy, theology, mathematics, astronomy, and cartography. When Cosimo Medici I became the second Duke of Tuscany he appointed Danti to teach science at Pisa and directed him to teach his sons mathematics. Cosimo’s eldest son, then thirty, resented the lessons and, after the death of his father, gave Danti twenty-four hours to leave Tuscany. Danti provided maps for Cosimo de’ Medici. He designed and number of astronomical instruments, brought about the reformation of the Gregorian calendar after having detected an eleven-day error, and was appointed Papal Cosmographer and Mathematician by Gregory XIII in 1580. This book was the first to be published in Italy on the astrolabe and contains the earliest known depiction of a woman using a scientific instrument. Woodcut vignette of Medici coat of arms on title-page. Printer’s mark on recto of last leaf.
 
Thomaso Porcacchi (ca. 1530-1585?)
Venetia: Appresso S. Galignani & Girolamo Porro, 1572
First edition
G500 P67 1572
 
By the middle of the sixteenth century the art of map printing, as distinct from the printing of charts, had reached a high state of development in Italy, particularly in Venice. Tomaso Porcacchi’s popular geography was reprinted in Italy several times until the late seventeenth century. One of the most influential geographical works of the sixteenth century, it describes the islands of Europe, the Pacific, southern Asia, and America, including Hispaniola, Cuba, and Mexico City. The work also includes Zaltieri’s famous delineation of North America (the first to divide Asia from Alaska), a navigator’s chart of the world, and a world map on oval projection after Ortelius, based on the projection used in the 1528 printed edition of Benedetto Bordone's Isolario. The copper engravings made for Porcacchi by Girolamo Porro are considered much superior to the woodcuts in the Bordone edition.
 
Francesco Maurolico (1494-1575)
Venetijs: apud F. Franciscium Senensem, 1575
First edition
QA33 M46
 
Francisco Maurolico learned Greek and mathematics from his father, who had fled to Sicily during the Turkish sack of Constantinople. He was ordained as a priest in 1521 and later joined the Benedictines. He lived his life in Sicily with short visits to Rome and Naples. He was in charge of the fortifications of Messina, and was appointed to write a history of Sicily. Maurolico took upon himself the recovery of classical mathematics, restoring several ancient works from incomplete manuscripts and translating texts by Theodosius, Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes, and others. He gave methods for measuring the Earth in one of his books. These methods were used nearly one hundred years later by Jean Picard in measuring the meridian of the earth. He made astronomical observation, in particular a supernova appearing in Cassiopeia in 1572. At the end of his life he published several works, including Opuscula, in which he refined the proof-methods of classical mathematics.
 
Prosper Alpini (1553-1617)
Venice: apud Franciscum de Franciscis Senensem, 1592
First edition
QK403 A4
 
Prosper Alpini, physician and botanist, was educated in Padua. For three years, beginning in 1580, he traveled through the Greek islands and Egypt. In 1593, he was appointed Chair of Botany at Padua. Alpini’s works were extremely popular during his lifetime. One of his best known is De plantis Aegypti liber, a description of fifty-seven plants found in Egypt and largely unknown in Europe, written in dialogue form. Alpini was the second European writer to mention the coffee plant in a printed book and the first to illustrate and describe it. The many woodcuts in this printing are more decorative than realistic.
 
Guiseppe Biancani (1566 - 1624)
Bononiae: Typis S. Bonomij, sumptibus Hieronymis Tamburini, 1620
First edition
GA7 B57
 
Galileo's 1609-10 observations through a telescope boosted scientific discussion throughout Europe, including amongst the Jesuits. They reproduced Galileo’s observations and debated the cosmological order of the universe considering the new data. The debate culminated in the adoption of Tycho Brahe’s system and was made official with the publication of Giuseppe Biancani’s Sphaera Mundi. The Jesuit Biancani fully accepted Brahe’s amendation of the Copernican cosmography which acknowledged the heliocentricity of the planetary system, while preserving the geocentricity of the universe. Biancani wrote his treatise in 1615, but it was not published until 1620, after the Decree of the Congregation of the Index in 1616. Written at the request of his students, Biancani respectfully cited Brahe, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler repeatedly. He discussed the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, sunspots, and the new stars of 1572, 1600, and 1604, astronomical phenomena not observed before the development of the telescope. Biancani also presented his own theory of the earth’s tendency toward roundness, wherein natural forces operate to flatten mountains and fill valleys so that the surface would be completely covered by the ocean, as it was in the early formation of the earth. Biancani wrote that God created the earth on the third day as a smooth sphere. God then created the depths of the sea and formed the mountains. One of the many woodcuts in the text is an illustration of the moon, with very inaccurately drawn craters. Another is the first illustration of a thermometer.
 
Galilei Galileo (1564-1642)
Fiorenza: Per Gio Batista Landini, 1632
First edition
QB41 G14
 
Born in Pisa in 1564, Galileo studied medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. In 1592 he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics in Padua. His early researches were mainly on motion, particularly of falling bodies, but he became interested in astronomy. He developed a new type of telescope. Much of Galileo’s early work proved the theories of Copernicus, of which the Roman Catholic Church disapproved, placing an injunction not to hold or defend Copernican doctrine. Galileo ignored the injunction with the publication of Dialogo. Galileo’s Dialogo is a scientific and philosophical affirmation of the Copernican heliocentric theory over the earth-centered Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. Galileo deliberately chose to write this work in vernacular Italian rather than scholarly Latin in order to reach a larger audience. That, along with his attractive literary style, and, of course, the topic, made his work a great success, and a threat to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Publication took place between June 1631 and February 1632. The first printing numbered 1000 copies of 500 pages. This printing sold out before the end of September, when it was banned by the Pope. It was this book that brought Galileo before the Inquisition in 1633, where he was forced to recant his views. He was put under permanent house arrest. Dialogo was placed on the Index of prohibited book where it remained until 1835.
 
Teodato Osio, (d. 1699)
Milan: C. Ferrandi, 1637
First and only edition
ML3849 O8 1637
 
A treatise on the relationship between music and other arts, particularly poetry. The first part explores vocal and instrumental music, harmony, interval, tempo, the science of proportion and poetic meter. The second part examines music and Latin verse, particularly the epic. The third addresses classical melodic modes and Italian verse (Bembo, Petrarch, Chiabrera, Cavalcanti, Stigliani and others). Milanese poet Teodato Osio examined the emotional effects of music, continuing a philosophy that began at least as early as Plato. Osio was interested in astrology, mathematics, numerology, magic and divination. He valued the effect of music over that of visual arts such as painting and acting. Published one year before John Milton’s visit to Italy, L’armonia is Osio’s only published work. Decorated and illustrated with typographic diagrams in text, nine folding and two small engraved plates printed on stiff paper, engraved architectural and allegorical title-page with Time, Fame, the Muses with instruments and the arms of the dedicatee, Francesco Braganza di Melo. Bound in contemporary vellum over flexible paper boards.
 
Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694)
Londini: apud Joannem Martyn & Jacobum Allestry, regi societatis typographos, 1669
First edition
QL561 B6 M3 1669
 
This is the first detailed monograph on the anatomy of an invertebrate. Marcello Malphighi was the founder of histology and a renowned microscopist. He dissected and observed silkworms, publishing his findings in this short treatise. Until this publication, it was believed that silkworms had no internal organs. A short time after receiving Malphighi’s solicited manuscript, the Royal Society elected him an honorary member, and paid for the publication of the treatise.
 
 
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli (1608-1679)
Romae : ex typographia Angeli Bernabo, M.DC.LXXX-MDC.LXXXI [1680]
First edition
QP301 B65 1680
 
Giovanni Borelli was trained in mathematics, but he also studied medicine, astronomy and geology. Among other things he investigated blood, Jupiter’s moons, and the movement of food through plants. At a time when Galileo was under attack, Borelli was sheltered from the Inquisition by Queen Christina of Sweden. Borelli corresponded with Galileo beginning in the 1640s, after Galileo’s house arrest. Borelli taught Marcelo Malpighi, who became a well-known anatomist. The two remained friends for life. In 1657, they founded a short-lived Italian scientific academy. Malpighi’s work inspired Borelli to study animal movement, a pursuit that would continue through the rest of his life. Though he would become known as the Father of Biomechanics, Borelli died in poverty. His masterwork, De Motv animalivm (On the Movement of Animals), was published posthumously, one year after his death. Borelli followed Galileo’s model of geometrical analysis in mechanics as a way to explain biological phenomenon. Borelli was the first to suggest that muscles contract with movement and that that contraction is enabled by chemical reaction in the muscle. He was the first to recognize that forward motion entails movement of a body’s center of gravity and is then completed by the swinging of limbs to maintain balance. He compared the working of the heart to a piston.
  Niccolo Amenta, Le gemelle commedia, 1718
 
Niccolo Amenta (1659-1719)
Venice: M. L. Muzii, 1718
First edition
PQ4562 A68 G45 1718
 
Niccolo Amenta was an attorney, poet, philosopher and playwright. He advocated for Tuscan language and was a member of the Accademia degli Investiganti. He wrote a biography of Leonard Di Capa, the founder of that organization. His plays were highly regarded in his time. Le Gemelle Commedia was printed three times in the eighteenth century. Contemporary binding of full brown calf. Covers elaborately gilt-tooled in compartments, with central design of flowers and arabesques. Spine gilt-tooled in compartments with brown leather label, all edges gilt.
Lorenzo Magalotti (1637-1712)
Firenze: Per I Tartini e Franchi, 1721
First edition
Q113 M35 1721
 
Lorenzo Magalotti was born in Florence at a time of political upheavals and religious wars. He studied with Viviani, one of the last pupils of Galileo. Magalotti was one of the first members of the Accademia de Cimento, founded in Florence in 1657 by Ferdinando II de’ Medici and his brother Prince Leopold. During the ten years of the Accademia’s existence he acted as secretary. In 1667, Magalotti left his scientific studies and traveled as a diplomat in the service of the Medicis. Lettere scientifiche, published posthumously, contains essays on the physical sciences, and covers subjects as diverse as light, Galileo, the comet of 1664, odor, languages, the properties of snow and the properties of viper venom. Folding engraved portrait of the author, engraved vignette on title, initials. Original boards. Uncut.
 

DELLE NOVELLA DI FRANCO SACCHETTI CITTADINO ... 
Franco Sacchetti (ca. 1330-ca. 1400)
In Firenze: n.p., 1724
First edition
PQ4555 A5 1724 v. 1 & 2
 
Franco Sacchetti’s humorous anecdotes, masterpieces of post-Boccaccian fiction, provide a vivid portrait of life in fourteenth century Florence. Born to a noble Florentine merchant family, Sacchetti had a thorough and intimate familiarity with the lives and manners of his bourgeois peers and was deeply influenced by the writings of Boccaccio, whose death in 1375 roughly coincided with the beginnings of Sacchetti’s career as a writer. This collection gathers two hundred and twenty-three (a few of which are fragments) of what Sacchetti originally planned as three hundred short tales, based on manuscripts that were part of the collections of the library of San Lorenzo and of Lorenzo Gherardini (according to a printed note following the final tale). Two pirated editions appeared with the same imprint and date. A number of typographical differences distinguish the first edition from its counterfeits. The unsigned preface has been attributed to librarian, philologist, and professor of theological history Giovanni Gaetano Bottari. Among the preliminaries is a section entitled “Autori che hanno parlato di Franco Sacchetti e delle sue opera,” a bibliography of early writings related to Sacchetti, and at the end of the second volume is printed a letter from Sacchetti to Giacomo, count of Perugia, on paintings of the saints. The dedication is addressed to Bartolommeo Corsini and is signed by Filippo Umberto. Woodcut architectural device to both title pages, historiated tailpieces, historiated and vignette initials.
 
Kingdom of Sardinia (1720-1730), Victor Amadeus I (1666-1732)
Torino, nell’ Accademia Reale: appresso Gio. Battista Chais, 1729
First edition
K3164
 
Universita di Torino was founded in 1404 in the midst of turmoil at the universities of Piacenza and Pavia from the Lombardy wars, attracting professors of theology, the arts, and medicine. By the sixteenth-century, students from more than thirteen nations attended Universita di Torino. Erasmus took a degree in theology here in 1506. The university was plagued by internal and external political pressures, particularly under the dukes Amedo VIII, Emanuele Filiberto, and Charles Emmanuel I, who alternately meddled in the university policies and suspended important financial support. Emmanuel I (1580-1630) channeled most university funding into his wars. Duke Victor Amadeus II, who was so instrumental in restoring Italian autonomy by forging a French-free Piedmont, is credited with reforming the university and with restoring its prestige through this constitution and series of regulations. The university came under state jurisdiction, with an official appointed by the court to direct the administration and censor school texts. This document provides a snapshot of university life and activities in Turin in the late eighteenth-century, covering everything from the administration of the university to the administration of the library and school festivals, holy days, and processions. A letter by Amadeus is reproduced at the end, followed by short statements summarizing the pedagogical focus of the schools of grammar, rhetoric, and humanities. For seventy years, these momentous documents retained their force, and it was only until Napoleon that the university was overhauled along French lines.
 
 
Virgil
Florentiae: typis Mannianis, 1741
First edition
PA6801 A1 1741
 
This book represents the first attempt ever to produce a manuscript facsimile by using type specially cut to mimic the manuscript. The manuscript dates from about 441 CE. It is one of the earliest extant of Roman classics and one of three primary sources of the Virgilian oeuvre. It is believed that this manuscript is older than the “Vatican Virgil.” Published under the direction of the Vatican librarian Pier Francesco Fogginin (1713-1783), the edition was printed in red and black made to simulate the original uncial script. Printed by Domenico Maria Manni (1690-1788), it is an ambitious work of literary and typographic love. Manni apprenticed in his father’s print shop. He became the director of the Biblioteca Strozzi in Florence. He was particularly interested in the Tuscan language of the fourteenth century and wrote several scholarly works on the subject. Renowned twentieth-century typographer Daniel Updike wrote of this book, “A curious piece of Italian typography, very characteristic of the eighteenth century…set entirely in old style capitals…imitating those of an ancient and famous manuscript Virgil in rustic characters, in the Laurentian Library, Florence. The preface exhibits a fairly accurate engraved reproduction of a few lines of the model on which the book was based, and in the text the… letters gives the general effect of a font of “rustic” type. Thus the work displays that amazing audacity in arriving at a striking effect, notwithstanding inaccurate details and economy of method, which was typical of Italian printing at that time. Issued at a place and period which appears unfavourable to such a venture, and dedicated to Lovers of the Fine Arts, it also indicates there has always been a public sufficiently sympathetic to encourage such publications. The volume is enlivened by occasional rubrication, which gives it a distinguished air.” (Printing Types I. p. 171.) Approximately twelve copies of this edition were printed on vellum, the rest on paper. Engraved dedication leaf, engraved allegorical frontispiece.
Girolamo Murari Murari dalla Corte (1747-1832)
Verona: nella Stamperia Giuliari, 1803
First edition
DK131 M87
 
Biography of Peter the Great written in ottava rima comprising twelve canti by the Venetian nobleman Murari dalla Corte. Printed by the Giuliari of Verona, printers noted by contemporaries for their superior work. The house was founded by the educated Veronese Bartolomeo Giuliari, owner of a fine library, and flourished between 1795 and 1827. Count Murari dedicated his work to Czar Alexander I, in recognition of his humanitarian attitude toward Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic conquests. Alexander's full page portrait was engraved after a drawing by Saverio Dalla Rosa (1745-1821) who received orders for portraits from all over the world and lived in Russia for years.
 
Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813)
Parma: Dalla Tipografia Bodoniana, 1809
First edition
ND621 P3 B63 1809
 
Giambattista Bodoni is one of the great typographers and printers of all time. Bodoni was raised in a family of printers. He worked as an apprentice for the Vatican’s printing house in Rome, where he printed a Coptic missal and a Tibetan alphabet. His skill was so respected that he was allowed to place his name on the imprint for these publications. In 1766, the Duke of Parma hired Bodoni to organize a print shop there. Bodoni began by publishing type specimen books, harbingers of great things to come from the shop. European nobility recognized the quality of the printing and soon commissioned Bodoni to print editions of classical works. In 1770, Bodoni started his own type foundry. He became successful enough to open his own print shop, Officina Bodoni, in 1790. His editions were sought for the beauty of their production as much as for their content. He designed more than two hundred typefaces and produced approximately twelve hundred editions. So famous was Bodoni that the cathedral bells of Parma were rung at his death. Le più insigni pitture Parmensi, or, “Famous Paintings of Parma,” was printed in 1809, but not published until 1816, three years after Bodoni’s death, by his widow, the Duchess Maria Luigia. Engravings by Francesco Rosaspina after Francisco Vieira. Printed in Italian and French. University of Utah copy in original binding with gold crest stamp on front and back. From the Kenneth Lieurance Ott Collection donated to the Okanagan County Museum, Washington.
 
Carlo Blasis (1803-1878)
Milan : Chez Beati et A. Tenenti, 1820
First edition
GV1787 B56 1820
 
Born in Naples, Carlo Blasis moved with his family to Marseilles as a young boy.  His father, who came from a long line of naval officers, was a well-established musician and composer. He gave all of his children musical training. Blasis also studied architecture, drawing, geometry, anatomy, and dancing. As a dancer he made his first public appearance at in Marseilles, followed by a successful tour of provincial towns. While dancing at the Paris Opera he was dismissed after his popularity became more than the  French dancers could tolerate.  From there he went to Milan where he established his career at La Scala. He danced all over Italy and in London. He married Annunziata Ramaccine and danced with her until a leg injury forced him to abandon his career as a performer. In 1837, he was made Director of the Imperial Academy at Milan, where he taught Carlotta Grisi and Fanny Cerrito, both already established stars of the dance. He became famous for his rigorous dance classes. He published his first work, and the first codified analysis on ballet technique, Traite, and continued to write on the technique, theory and history of dance for the rest of his life. He developed the attitude position, based on the statue of Mercury by Geovanni da Bologna. He discovered the technique called “spotting,” which prevented dizziness while performing turns. He taught Enrico Cecchetti, who would later expand Blasis’s technique and would become famous in his own right for ballet instruction that is still used.
 
Samuele Mazzuchelli (1806-1864)
Milano: Coi tipi della ditta Boniardi-Pogliani…, 1844
First edition
BX1406 M34 1844
 
Father Samuele Mazzuchelli, a Dominican priest from Milano, traveled to the United States in 1828, staying for the next thirty-six years. Arriving only a few weeks after being ordained, he was the only Roman Catholic priest whose mission covered the territory of northern Michigan and all of present-day Wisconsin. He was remarkably productive. He claimed to have baptized fifteen hundred American Indians as well as ministering to Anglo pioneers. He founded thirty parishes and built twenty churches. In 1843, Mazzuchelli returned to Italy to recruit missionaries and secure funds to found a seminary. While there he published an anonymous book recounting his experiences, describing church missions in Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois and including a visit to Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. Mazzuchelli wrote that he “desired to see and speak with the heresiarch known for several years in every part of the Republic and even in England.” He visited Joseph Smith in an unsuccessful attempt to convert him. Smith told Mazzuchelli that “he had many times seen God face-to-face and had had more revelations than the Apostle St. Paul.” Claims such as this re-enforced Mazzuchelli’s view of Smith as a “false prophet” and heretic. Mazzuchelli determined that Solomon Spaulding wrote the Book of Mormon and that “the theology of the Mormons is chiefly the work of a certain P. Pratt.” Mazzuchelli cited J.B. Turner’s Mormonism in All Ages, or the Rise, Progress and Cause of Mormonism as a source, a book which also criticized the Roman Catholic Church. University of Utah copy missing map 3.
 
 
Londra: G. Bowden, 1852
First edition in Italian
BX8625 I8 1852
 
Lorenzo Snow, T. B. H. Stenhouse, Jabex Woodard, and Joseph Toronto (a native Sicilian) began missionary work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Italy in 1850. The missionaries spent their time in the Kingdom of Sardinia among the Waldensians, French-speaking inhabitants of Piedmont. In 1851 Snow went to London, where he supervised the translation of the Book of Mormon into Italian. Approximately one thousand copies were published in 1852. Twenty-five copies were bound in morocco for church authorities, one hundred and sixty-seven were bound in sheepskin. The remaining copies were bound in blue cloth in 1927. University of Utah copy bound in sheepskin with blind-embossed boards, title on spine in gilt, from the library of John A. Widtsoe.

AVVENTURE DELLA MIA VITA ... 
Leonetto Cipriani (1812-1888)
Bologna: N. Zanichelli editore, 1934
First edition
DG552.8 C56 M67 1934
 
In 1852, Leonetto Cipriani was appointed by the King of Sardinia as that country’s first consul in San Francisco. Cipriani, born into a Florentine family living in Corsica, fought against Austria in 1848 and was imprisoned and then exiled. After resigning as consul, he purchased cattle in the American mid-west with the intention of selling them in California. During his cattle drive, in 1852, he passed through Salt Lake City. There, a converted Sicilian, Domenico Ballo, introduced Cipriani to John Taylor. Taylor introduced Cipriani to Brigham Young. In this book, Cipriani reminisces about the Salt Lake Theatre, where Ballo conducted the orchestra, and conversations with Taylor regarding polygamy and politics. In the 1859 War of Independence he was a member of Napoleon III’s headquarters and served briefly as governor of Romagna.
 

VERGILIUS VATICANUS
Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1984
Z114 V3 1984
 
Facsimile. One of the earliest known Roman manuscripts to survive from antiquity, the Vergilius Vaticanus was produced sometime between 370 and 430. Only seventy-five of the original 430 folios still exist. The surviving manuscript contains a series of fragments of the “Georgics” and the “Aeneid” of Virgil, the Roman poet whose works were an essential component in the teaching of Latin throughout the Middle Ages. Like most manuscripts of its time, there is no word separation within the text. The opening letter of each page is slightly enlarged. Written in single columns of the elegant formal script, Roman Rustic Capitals, it is characteristic of other early surviving manuscripts of Virgil. The script was copied in the Utrecht Psalter, a later, Carolingian manuscript. Illustrated in the Roman style similar to wall paintings found at Pompeii, small miniature paintings are interspersed within the verses. Larger full-page compositions are also found throughout the manuscript. It is possible that the miniatures were adapted from an earlier edition. The lavishness of the illustrations points to the importance of Virgil’s texts throughout this era and a revival of Roman literature in the late Empire. Raphael saw the manuscript while visiting the Vatican and was strongly influenced by it. The painter based his Plague at Pergamea on two of the manuscript's miniature illustrations.
 
 
DES PEDANIOS DIOSKURIDES
Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1988
R126 D56 1988
 
Facsimile. Ca. seventh century, Italy? This manuscript is one of the oldest in the tradition of Materia medica, a pharmacological treatise written by Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the first century AD. Dioscorides’ work was used by the medieval world for centuries. In the sixth century it was translated into Latin. By the ninth century it had been translated into Arabic, Syrian and Hebrew. Over four hundred plants are described in this illustrated herbal manual, each illustration identified in red ink. The binding of wooden covers and leather accords with the character of the original.
  Hirmologium e codice Cryptensi E. II, edendum curavit Laurentius Tardo, facsimile, 1950
 
HIRMOLOGIUM E CODICE CRYPTENSI E. II, EDENDUM CURAVIT LAURENTIUS TARDO
Catholic Church. Byzantine rite (Greek) Liturgy and ritual. Hirmologion
Roma: Libreria dello Stato, 1950
M2154.6 B8 H5
 
Facsimile. Under pressure from the Arabs, whose troops were advancing into Sicily and Calbria, Italo-Greek monks fled north. The Byzantine Abbey of St Nilo at Grottaferrata, Italy was founded in 1002 by the Basilian monks St Nilo and St Bartholemew. This monastery, located just outside Rome, is the only Italo-Greek monastic institution to survive. Southern Italy had a strong Byzantine tradition from the sixth century onward. The Greek Church was at its peak in the tenth century. This manuscript is from the library of the Grottaferrata monastery.
  Gospel Harmony of Eusebius, facsimile, 1991
 
GOSPEL HARMONEY OF EUSEBIUS
Caesarea of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (ca. 260-ca. 340)
Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1991-1992
BX2005 A35 C58 1991
 
Facsimile. Brescia (Italy), second quarter of eleventh century. This concordance was created by Eusebius in the fourth century. Composed almost exclusively of full-page illuminations, initials, and canon tables, this copy is illustrated with nineteen different architectural arches of classical style that frame the Gospel harmony. Sections of the Gospels are illustrated with full-page illuminations and opulent initials introducing feast day readings. The text is written in Carolingian miniscule.
  The Codex Benedictus, facsimile, 1982
 
THE CODEX BENEDICTUS
New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982
BX2003 A35 C6 1982
 
Facsimile. The Codex Benedictus was produced by 1071 in the monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy. It contains scriptural references, biographies, sermons, eulogies, poems, and stories about three saints of the abbey – Benedict; his twin sister, Scholastica; and Maur, Benedict’s first disciple. St. Benedict (ca. 480-547) was the father of western European monasticism and founded the monastery at Monte Cassino. His Rule set a pattern for monastic life that lasted for centuries and had great influence on Christian culture in Western Europe. The biography of St. Benedict scribed in this book was taken from the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great (540-604). The biography lovingly depicts him as a monk devoted to Christ and to leading other Christians with wisdom and love – “For this holy man could not teach otherwise than he lived.” The codex was used on the eve of important festivals, read at only the most solemn occasions, reserved exclusively for liturgical use. The codex contains ornate initials and/or miniatures on every leaf, sixty-six of which illustrate the life of St. Benedict. The lettering¸ in a South Italian script referred to today as “Beneventan miniscule” was performed with extraordinary precision by a single scribe named Leo. The oversized initial letters, replete with Byzantine characteristics and extravagantly detailed with gold leaf, were created by another single illuminator. The miniatures were created by several illuminators, using sixteen bright colors. The original manuscript was likely first bound with gold and gems. The facsimile is hand bound in half brown morocco of goatskin over boards of Lebanese cedar, with gilt spine and raised bands. This binding is typical of manuscript bindings of eleventh century Europe. The facsimile was created in celebration of the fifteen hundredth anniversary of St. Benedict’s birth. Facsimile edition of six hundred copies, fifty copies hors de commerce.
  Exultet Roll, facsimile, 1988
 
EXULTET ROLL
Zurich: Belser, 1998
ND3380.4 B37 E36 1988
 
Facsimile. The Barberini Exultet Roll, of which five sections survive, was created in the Benedictine abbey of Monte Casino, in central Italy, around 1087. Above the text are neumes – an early form of musical notation. The captions to the illuminations (some in Latin, others in Italian) were added toward the end of the thirteenth century by monks as part of restoration work. The text is written in the opposite direction of the illuminations, a usual practice for such rolls. As the deacon chanted from an elevated position, the roll would hang over a railing so that the congregation below could follow the chant through representative pictures. The Exultet is a liturgical hymn sung at Easter. The most important parts of the Easter ceremonies were recorded on rolls – particularly in Southern Italy, which was strongly influenced by the Byzantine Church.
LI LIVRES DOU TRESOR
Brunetto Latini
Barcelona: M. Moleiro, 2000
PQ1429 L24 L5 2000
 
Facsimile. Brunetto Latini was a true Italian Renaissance humanist. Florentine politician, poet, historian, philosopher, and teacher and friend to Dante, he wrote this encyclopedia while exiled in France between 1260 and 1267. The codex consists of three books, each written in French. The first book begins with Biblical history, the history of Troy, and the history of the Middle Ages, followed by a natural history compiled from other astronomical and geographical sources. Animal and bird species are described in detail. The second book discusses ethics, based upon classical and contemporary philosophers. The third book discusses what, to the author, was the noblest of all sciences, politics and the art of governing. One hundred and fifteen illuminations of beasts, and characters such as acrobats and musicians, decorate the preface and each chapter. Gold and blue initials, arabesques, and other ornamentation are worked in throughout. The illumination was probably done in a layman’s workshop in Paris. The paper used for this facsimile was handmade to match the thickness, tact, and smell of the original. Facsimile edition of nine hundred and eighty-seven copies.
 

MODI ORANDI SANCTI DOMINICI
Zurich: Belser Verlag, 1995
BX2050 D7 M63 1995
 
Facsimile. Written by a Bolognese Dominican between the years 1260 and 1288, this copy was produced about 1330 in the south of France. The anonymous author described what he said an eyewitness told him about Saint Dominic at prayer. Nine miniatures show Saint Dominic in various attitudes of prayer. These attitudes arise from the medieval monastic tradition, emphasizing emotional demonstrations of tears, laughter, and exclamations during prayer. St. Dominic’s innovation was to use his whole body as part of this emotional prayer. This is an example of a girdle book – a book bound with an additional protective covering of soft leather made so that it could be hung from the girdle of medieval and renaissance clothing and swung upward for reading while still attached to the piece of clothing. Devotional books or professional reference books, such as law books, were most often bound in this manner. Some of these bindings were produced in velvet or brocade to protect more elegant illuminated prayer books.
 
 
IL CODICE TRIVULZIANO
Dante Alighieri (1275-1321)
Milano: U. Hoepli, 1921
PQ4301 A1 1921
 
Facsimile. Original manuscript written by the scribe Francesco di ser Vardo in 1337. The first leaf of each of the three main divisions is illuminated. The introduction to each canto is in red with ornamental initials. Presented to the University of Utah by the Italians of the United States of America, in commemoration of the six-hundredth anniversary of the death of Dante. Facsimile edition of three hundred and fifty copies. University of Utah copy is no. 60.
  Das Musterbuch des Giovannino de Grassi, facsimile, 1998
 
DAS MUSTERBUCH DES GIOVANNINO DE GRASSI
Giovannino de’Grassi (ca. 1340-1398).
Luzern: Faksimile Verlag Luzern, 1998
NC257 G3715 1998
 
Facsimile. Late 14th century, Milan. This model book,  an example of late Italian Gothic art, was created by painter, sculptor, and architect Giovannino de Grassi.  Giovannino de Grassi became known as the artist who contributed to the construction and furnishing of the Milan Cathedral. He had contacts with the most famous architects of his time, including Heinrich Parler and Ulrich von Einsinge. De Grassi’s model book is known for its Gothic alphabet, consisting of human and animal figures. The famous alphabet at the end of the book demonstrates the wit and irony De Grassi used in creating his work. The model book contains seventy-seven drawings which reflect the Bohemian art of the period. In its day, de Grassi’s model book was well-known among artists and book illuminators all over Europe. Paul Limbourg, for example, took a drawing from this book as a model for a scene in the Tres Riches Heures, a book of hours commissioned by the Duc de Berry. All model books influenced the stylistic evolution of art. In the case of this model book, De Grassi strongly influenced Italian art at the beginning of the Renaissance.
THEATRUM SANITATIS 
Barcelona: M. Moleiro, 1999
RS79 T46 1999
 
Facsimile. This handbook of health was written between 1052 and 1063 by the Arab Ububchasym of Baldach. Many of the concepts used in his writing were derived from earlier Greek, Roman, and Arabic medical treatises. Good health depended upon six essential factors: climate, food and drink, movement and rest, sleep and wakefulness, happiness, pain and sadness. Plants, fruits, vegetables, and basic hygiene also affect a person’s health. Ninety-nine of these and other elements are described with the therapeutic properties of each and the ailments that may be helped by them. The illustrations were influenced by the school of Giovannino de Grassi. Two hundred and eight red-framed, nearly full-page illuminations illustrate scenes from daily life as well as the elements described. Hand bound in brown leather with gold engraving. Arabesques adorn the spine of the book. Facsimile paper is handmade to match the thickness, tact, and smell of the original. Facsimile edition of nine hundred and eighty-seven copies. University of Utah copy is no. 873
 

TACUINUM SANITATUS IN MEDICINA
Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1986
RS79 T335 1986
 
Facsimile. Northern Italy. This illuminated medical handbook was produced for a layperson – a woman of the upper aristocracy or of a rich patrician family able to read, and afford, a lavish book. A reference of sorts for the household management of health and healing, this type of book goes back to an Arab source written by the physician Ibn Butlan in the 11th century. The Arab art and science of healing decisively influenced occidental medicine and enjoyed a long-lived and distinguished reputation. The Latin translation, which made the codex accessible to the educated of the medieval western world, was widely known. Many copies survive. This particular copy is one of the finest of its kind, displaying over two hundred full-page miniatures of all that was considered important with regard to human health and well being. Beginning in the 14th century, the text was placed below an individual image. The miniatures portray the evocative everyday life of late Medieval Italian culture. With a natural style and strong colors, two artists portrayed plants, animals, food, and drugs. All of the objects are within scenes centered upon a human. The text below each miniature describes both the benefits and shortfalls of the object depicted. Derived from the classical herbal tradition, but closely related to Arab manuscripts, the format follows a later western tradition. Bound in leather on wooden boards with hand stamping according to contemporary pattern.
 
 
LE LIVRES DES MERVEILLES 
Marco Polo (1254-1323?)
Luzern: Faksimile Verlag, c1995
G370 P914 1995
 
Facsimile. Paris, early 15th century. The Duke of Burgundy commissioned this manuscript of Marco Polo’s account of his travels together with reports of other journeys of discovery. In 1413 he presented the manuscript to the Duc de Berry. Its illuminations of cities and scenes from Marco Polo’s descriptions are noted for the use of linear and aerial perspectives, and for artistic license. Polo began writing his story in 1298, after a twenty-four year odyssey through Asia. Nearly one hundred and twenty manuscripts of the story survive, many of them exaggerating his already hard-to-believe claims. Most readers did not believe the fantastic tales he told. He did, in fact, make things up. But he expanded medieval Europe’s meager knowledge of Asia with such names as Cipangu (Japan), Java, Zanzibar, and Ceylon. If not accurately, he described geographical features such as the Takla Makan Desert, the Yangtze River and the great cities of Catai (China). He described the palace of Kublai Khan “the greatest that ever was seen,” with a hall large enough to accommodate 6,000 diners and encompassed by a wall four miles around. He introduced Europe to black stones that burned better than wood, money made of paper, porcelain and asbestos. He reported cannibalism in Sumatra, and also “that there are men who have tails more than a palm in size.” Certainly, Polo was neither the first nor the last adventurer to exaggerate. Herodotus told of gold-digging ants in India and winged snakes in Egypt. Walter Raleigh described El Dorado, a city of gold.
  Liber physiognomiae, facsimile, 2000
 
LIBER PHYSIOGNOMIAE 
Modena: Il bulino, 2000
BF1410 L53 2000
 
Facsimile. Produced in northeastern Italy, this miscellany of medieval astrological treatises was compiled by an anonymous scholar. The artist who decorated the text with delicate watercolors is also unknown. The text contains astrological considerations about the days and seasons, displaying horoscopes for the twelve zodiacal signs. The author tightly linked astrological knowledge to other fields of science and culture, including interpretations of the biblical dreams of the prophet Daniel and the medical essays of Pietro d’Abano, a professor at Padua University in the early 14th century. The codex came with two astrolabes, rotating dials with pointers that enabled the reader to make zodiacal and medicinal-psychological calculations. Facsimile edition of nine hundred and ninety-nine copies. University of Utah copy is no. 583.
DE SPHAERA ESTENSE
Modena, Italy: Il Bulino, 1995
QB26 D47 1995
 
De Sphaera Estense is a treatise on astrology, a field of study accepted as a part of Medieval and early Renaissance life. This illuminated manuscript is considered by many to be the most beautiful codex of the period. Of Lombard origin, it dates between the sixth and seventh decades of the fifteenth century. It is presumed to have been part of the dowry of Anna, the daughter of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. In 1491, Anna was married to Alfonso D'Este, crown prince of the Ferrara dukedom. The original manuscript resides in the Estense Library in Modena, Italy.
 
 
ALPHABETUM ROMANUM 
Felice Feliciano
Zurich: Belser Verlag, c1985
Z40 F428 1985
 
Facsimile. This is the first treatise on the construction of classic Roman inscription letters and also is the first attempt to construct them within a circle and square. In antiquity these rules were normally observed, but were later forgotten. Veronese calligrapher Felice Feliciano wrote in 1463 that he constructed his Roman capital letters based upon ancient marble tablets found in Rome. The text of this codex is in Italian.
DAS SKIZZENBUCH DES FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO MARTINI 
Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439-1502)
Zurich: Belser Verlag, 1989
NA1123 M366 A4 1989
 
Produced between 1465 and 1492 by the Italian Francesco di Giorgio Martini, this is one of two sketchbooks the early renaissance artist wrote. Francesco di Giorgio’s earliest work is found in medieval manuscript illuminations. As a sculptor, his work was even more sophisticated. By the 1480’s Francesco was also one of Italy’s leading architects. His two sketchbooks of notes and drawings reveal his sense of refinement and his innovation in civil and military architecture and engineering.
 

LIBELLUS DE QUINQUE CORPORIBUS REGULARIBUS
Piero della Francesca (1420?-1492)
Firenze: Giunti, 1995
QA444 P547 1995
 
Facsimile. One of the great artists of the early Italian Renaissance, Piero della Francesca is also known for his contributions to the fields of geometry and mathematics. As a painter, Piero was particularly skilled in perspective. In his later years, he stopped painting altogether and pursued his interest in mathematics, writing at least three works on the subject, including this, the “Short book on the five regular solids.” None of Piero’s mathematical work was published under his own name during his lifetime, but circulated quite widely in manuscript form and was incorporated into the works of others. Facsimile edition of nine hundred and ninety-eight copies. University of Utah copy is no. 867.
 

TACUINUM SANITATIS 
Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1984
RS79 T33 1984
 
Facsimile. Venice, 1490. Tacuinum Sanitatis (Handbook of Health) is the modern title given to one of the most popular treatises on medicine during the later Middle Ages. It combines Arabic and western knowledge on many types of foods, plants, and circumstances, with particular reference to their useful and harmful properties, and how the latter could be cured if necessary. The illustrated versions of this text yield much information on medieval daily life. The manuscript is comprised of 82 leaves, with four miniatures per page, a total of 294 miniatures. The captions or text are based on the Taqwin al-sihhah of Ibn Butlan (d. 1066), which was not illustrated. Ibn Butlan, originally from Baghdad, visited Cairo about 1049, after which he went to Constantinople before settling at Antioch in Syria and becoming a Nestorian monk. Facsimile edition of nine hundred and eighty copies, numbered.
 

ATLAS DE JOAN RIZCO, ALIAS OLIVA
Joan Oliva
Madrid: Testamonio, 1987
G1015 O17 1987
 
Facsimile. Published in Naples in 1580, the Atlas consists of nineteen port charts on parchment, an example of the geographical knowledge of the period. It contains some of the first nautical maps of the New World. Edition of nine hundred and eighty numbered copies. University of Utah copy is no. 207.
 
 
THE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI 
Alighieri Dante (1265-1321)
San Francisco, CA: The Grabhorn Press, 1958
Z232.5 G7 D36
 
Book gift-plate designed and printed by The Allen Press. Issued in slipcase. Edition of three hundred copies.
  The Holy Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Editiones Officinae Bodoni, 1962
 
THE HOLY GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE AND JOHN
Verona: Editiones Officinae Bodoni, 1962
BS2553 A3 1962
 
The Officina Bodoni was founded in 1922 by typographer and printer Giovanni Mardersteig (1892-1977). The press, named after typographer Giambattista Bodoni, produced fine limited editions until 1977. The Holy Gospel is illustrated with reproductions of one hundred and fourteen of the woodcuts from the 1495 edition of Epistole et Evangelii et lectioni volgari in..., recut by Bruno Bramanti from the original designs for Bartolomeo de Giovanni. Title-page engraved in wood by Reynolds Stone. Printed in Mardersteig’s Renaissance-inspired Zeno type on Magnani mould-made paper. Bound in maroon morocco gilt. Edition of one hundred and fifty-five copies. University of Utah copy is no. 63.
A VENETIAN STORY
Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824).
Kentfield, CA: Allen Press, 1963
Z232.5 A5 B97
 
This long, narrative poem was first published anonymously in 1818 under the title, Beppo, A Venetian Story. Lord Byron wrote the story in 1817, during a notorious three-year stay in Venice. Based on a presumably true anecdote, told to Byron by the husband of his lover, the anonymous poem, a lively, witty account of Venetians, became immediately popular. Printed damp on Rives mouldmade paper by Lewis and Dorothy Allen on their Acorn-Smith handpress. Illustrated with thirty-five large, full-page photolithographs from rare copperplate engravings selected by Eleanor Garvey and Philip Hofer. Hofer and Garvey selected images from different sets of illustrations originally published in 1720, 1741, and 1742. Loose leaves in purple Fortuny cloth folder housed in brown cloth shelfback box with purple single endpapers. Edition of one hundred and fifty copies.
 

LE STREGHETTE
Mirek
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1972
PQ4873 I7 S7 1972
 
In Italian, with English translation. Printed on a Washington handpress from handset Horizon Light type by Richard-Gabriel Rummonds in January 1972. Paper is Fabriano, individually tinted by the artist and the printer. The paper was printed damp. Four of the linocuts are signed by the artist. Issued in slipcase. Edition of 81 copies, 69 numbered. University of Utah copy is no. 21.
 

CIRCHI E CENE = CIRCUSES AND SUPPERS 
Andrea Zanzotto
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1979
PQ4851 A74 A22 1979
 
Etchings by Joe Tilson. Printed by Gabriel Rummonds and Alessandro Zanella using an 1847 Washington handpress on handmade paper with Spectrum type. Edition of one hundred and fifty copies, signed by the poet and the artist.
 

ITALY
Johanna Drucker (b. 1952).
Berkeley, CA: The Figures, c1980
PS3554 R75 I8 1980
 
From the author’s statement: “...Not precisely a travel narrative, it had been one of several ‘real accounts’ that established a strain of writing practice that continues to the present…Self in these projects is the place from which and through which observation is synthesized. Feelings are not what matters, though responses are registered…I am what I see, react to, know, smell, taste. Subjectivity is radically constituted in the process, and has no pre-existing shape except as a sort of calibrated filters…I wanted to have a ‘real’ book in print, a generic offset, edited and published work….” Edition of five hundred copies.
 
 
LO STEMMA CITTADINO
Franz Kafka (1883-1924)
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1980
PT2621 A26 S716 1980
 
Translation of Das Stadtwappen. Letterpress printed.
LA DONNA CON LA BOCCA APERTA 
Luigi Santucci
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1980
PQ4841 A67 D59 1980
 
In Italian, with English translation. Illustrated with serigraphs by Emilio Tadini. Printed by Gabriel Rummonds. Issued in slipcase. Edition of 110 copies, signed by the artist. University of Utah copy is no. 106
 

VERONA E I SUOI FIUMI 
John Ruskin (1819-1900)
Verona: Plain Wrapper Press, 1981
PR5261 V47 I8 1981
 
Printed by Gabriel Rummonds and Alessandro Zanella. Edition of 40 copies.
 

DANTE'S INFERNO
Tom Phillips (1937-).
London: Talfourd, 1983
PQ4329 P45 1983
 
Translated, illustrated and designed by Top Phillips. This edition took seven years to complete. The project endured a studio fire and survived prohibitive production costs. Tom Phillips translation is blank verse of Dante’s Italian into contemporary English. Most of the plates combine textual content, in stenciled lettering or text balloons and images freely derived from sources ranging from magazines, postcards and Gustave Doré’s illustrations of Dante; and manipulations of Picasso and Michelangel. In the last plate of the last Canto, a survivor of the 1978 fire, a book-shaped collage of seminal images from the plates floats above the billowing sunray-like pages of Dante’s book in a starry sky borrowed from Van Gogh. This is the first production from Talfourd Press, and was finished on April 30, 1983 “on the seven hundredth anniversary of the meeting of Dante and Beatrice on the Ponte Santa Trinità.” Illustrated with one hundred and thirty-nine prints (in lithography, etching, aquatint, soft-ground etching and silkscreen). Etchings proofed and editioned by Nick Tite and John Duffin at Talfourd; lithographs by Nick Hunter as Ashby Studio; screenprints by Chris Betambeau at Advanced Graphics, with the exception of two from Coriander Press. Letterpress printed from Walbaum type designed by Ian Mortimor on Somerset-type wove mould-made paper tinted at Inveresk Mills to the artist’s specification and incorporating his signature as the watermark. Edition of one hundred and eighty-five copies.
 

PRIMA CHE TU DICA "PRONTO" 
Italo Calvino
Cottondale, AL: Plain Wrapper Press, 1985
PQ4809 A45 P713 1985
 
The aesthetic and technical challenge of binding this edition inspired Craig Jensen to pursue edition binding over book conservation. It also marked the beginning of his work with master printer Gabriel Rummonds. Illustrated with four multi-colored woodcuts by Antonio Frasconi. Printed on an 1847 Washington handpress by Gabriel Rummonds and Alessandro Zanella. Some pages printed on double leaves. Type is handset Post Mediaeval cast by H. Berthold A.G. Paper handmade at the Cartiere Enrico Magnani, printed damp. Tan quarter leather with pastepaper sides by Antony O’Hara. Binding is a tight joint, in-boards style, incorporating a spine hollow and handsewn silk endbands. Housed in a cloth-covered, drop-spine3 box with the Plain Wrapper Press device set in a recess on front board. Edition of seventy-five numbered copies, signed by the poet and the artist. University of Utah copy is no. 4, printed for Tom and Elfie Rummonds.
 
 
LYRIC (ANCOR CHI L'AIGUA PER LU FOCU LASSI)
Guido delle Colonne (13th c.)
Lincoln, NE: Blue Heron Press, 1985
PQ4299 C7 A8313 1985
 
Comprised of three loose sheets, printed on one side, each folded accordion-style into two double leaves, in a folder. Handset with Romulus Roman type. Paper is Twinrocker. Edition of twenty copies. University of Utah copy is no. 15.
LETTER OF COLUMBUS
David Citino
Ohio State University: Logan Elm Press, 1990
PS3553 I86 L47 1990
 
Poem adapted from the letter Christopher Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella on February 15, 1493, as he was returning to Spain from his first voyage to the “New World.” Illustrated with monoprints by Anthony Rice. Issued in paper-covered slipcase with inlaid cast paper bas-relief. Edition of one hundred and thirty signed and numbered copied. University of Utah copy is no. 11.
 

MINUET FROM QUINTET IN E BY LUIGI BOCCHERINI 
Fairfax, CA: Jungle Garden Press, 1990
N7433.4 J8 M3 1990
 
A music box in the form of a book, the mechanism inset in hollowed-out pages. The winding key protrudes from the back cover. Illustrated with bars of music. Covers are tin.
 
 
MICHELANGELO : HIS SONNETS
Michelangelo Buonarraoti (1475-1564)
Greenbrae, CA: Allen Press, 1991
Z232.5 A5 M53 1991
 
Translated into English by John Addington Symonds. Printed in two colors on Barcham Green handmade paper, uncut. With a frontispiece photograph of a Michelangelo self-portrait cut in stone. Bound in quarter-cloth over Venetian Fortuny cloth. Edition of one hundred and fifteen copies. University of Utah copy accompanied by printer’s announcement.
THE LIFE OF DANTE
Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
Greenbrae, CA: The Allen Press, 1992
Z232.5 A5 B63 1992
 
Giovanni Boccaccio was born eight years before Dante’s death and therefore was writing a near-contemporary account of his life. Translated into English by Philip Henry Wicksteed. Illustrated with four wood engravings by John de Pol. Printed in Italian Old Style designed by Frederick Goudy on handmade Whatman rag paper. Bound in half-linen over hand-blocked Fortuny fabric imported from Italy. Edition of one hundred and nine copies. University of Utah copy signed by Lewis and Dorothy Allen.
 
 
THE MECHANICAL DREAMER = IL SOGNATRE MECCANICO 
Jules Remedios Faye
Seattle: Street of Crocodiles, 1993
N7433.4 F38 M4 1993
 
Text is handset Futura with Granby Inline, letterpress printed on a Chandler & Price platen press. Linocuts are printed on a Vandercook 4. Paper is Mohawk’s Molino. Bound in blue and copper decorated paste paper covering boards, black cloth spine. Edition of one hundred and twenty-five, numbered and signed by the artist. University of Utah copy is no. 25.
PHISICKE AGAINST FORTUNE 
Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374)
Berkeley, Foolscap Press, 1993
PQ4496 E29 D45 1993
 
Forty-six dialogues by the Italian poet. Translation by Thomas Twyne. Introduction by Lewis W. Spitz. Essay by William M. Ivins, Jr., with a section of notes explaining the symbolism. Woodcut illustrations by Hans Weidtz from a German edition of 1452. Bound in red silk over blind-stamped cream paper boards, gilt lettering to spine. Edition of one hundred and seventy-five copies. Initials printed in red. Designed, printed and bound by Peggy Gotthold and Lawrence G. Van Vlezer. University of Utah copy is no. 76.
 

THE CODE : EXCERPTS FROM THE ITALIAN CODE OF ... 
Jacopo Gelli (1858-1935)
Bisbee, AZ: Pequeno Press, 1996
CR4595 I8 G44 1996
 
Translated by E. Bruno Magliocco. Jacopo Gelli describes the rules governing nineteenth century dueling. Designed and produced by Pat Baldwin. Illustrated in black and white with color borders and one pop-up at the opening. Miniature book bound in tan suede with set-in miniature guns on the cover, paper label on the spine. Edition of fifty copies, signed by the book maker. University of Utah copy is no. 17.
 

BINDING TIES
Angela Lorenz
Bologna: Sintesi Edizioni, 1997
N7433.4 L67 B55 1997
 
Made with paper, silk, copper wire, and raffia, this book presents six vignettes in the history of international trade across six continents. The structure itself is built with cultural information emphasizing the importance of the textile trade from pre-history onward and reflecting a combination of Western businessmen and indigenous peoples. The poems are hidden within six silk-screened and die cut neckties representing military regiments sent to the colonial territories of Great Britain. The ties are bound in a panorama format. The word “pull” is visible at the top of each tie. As the tie is pulled up the text gradually appears. The materials used in the making of this book are all representative components of the meaning within the text. Copper, for instance, an African import, enabled the rise of electricity, which advanced trade via the telegraph. The back of each tie is silk-screened with blue ink, revealing the herringbone grain of the paper. The “seam” is printed with the same ink and is perforated by hand with a tailor’s sewing wheel used to mark patterns. The paper comes in tweed, plain, and pinstripe, and is made from recycled scraps from the garment industry, as well as new material. The case for the book is based on the envelopes in which ties are sold in Italy. It is titled in gold and covered with an outline of the continents with commodities traded in various areas. The book may be worn as an apron, with the raffia ties to secure around the waist, or as a sort of hat, tied around the crown of the head. The edition of thirty is symbolic of the Thirty Years War in seventeenth century Europe, when Croatian mercenaries fighting for France introduced a new form of neckwear on the battlefield. Returning home, French officers wore them at court and thus, the modern necktie was born. Edition of thirty copies, signed by the artist, plus A-L lettered series for non-commercial use.
 
 
INVISIBLE CITIES 
Italo Calvino
San Fransisco, CA: Arion Press, 1999
Z232.5 A7 C35 1999
 
Twelve drawings of sites and artifacts by Wayne Thiebaud. Drawings from photopolymer plates on mylar. Edition of four hundred numbered copies for sale and twenty-six lettered copies for private distribution. Each copy numbered, lettered or signed by Wayne Thiebaud.
  Henry James, Siena, Red Angel Press, 2000
 
SIENA
Henry James (1843-1916)
Bremen, ME ; New York : Red Angel Press, 2000
PS2120 S45 2000
 
Henry James’ story was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in June, 1874. It was later published (with revisions) in Transatlantic Sketches (1875) and then in Italian Hours (1909). The text for this edition is the 1874 version. Of Siena, James wrote, "It was void of any human presence which could recall me to the current year, and, the moonshine assisting, I had half an hour’s fantastic vision of mediaeval Italy." Illustrated with a multi-color woodcut by Ronald Keller. Text is handset Bembo. Letterpress printed on dampened Fabriano Ingres paper. A single sewn signature of text in a box with a woodcut on the last four pages which folds out from the structure to depict Siena’s Piazza del Campo, including the sloped pavement. The image recreates the story’s description of the moon shadow cast by the Palazzo Pubblico on the piazza. A cast paper representation of the famous bronze sculpture of Romulus and Remus is inset on the front cover. Bound in cloth with letterpress on spine. Designed by Ronald Keller. Edition of one hundred copies, signed by the artist.
VUES DE VENISE
George Sand (1804-1876)
Octon, France : Verdigris, 2001
PQ2412 A32 2001
 
Reversible accordion fold binding with hand-marbled Venetian paper boards with the Sand letter printed in one direction and the Zola letter printed in the opposite. Edition of fifty copies, signed by the artist. University of Utah copy is no. 35.
 
 
THE THEATER OF NATURE, OR CURIOSITY FILLED THE ... 
Angela Lorenz
Bologna, Italy: Novelties of Purpose, a division of Angela Lorenz Artist’s Books, 2002
First trade edition
N7433.4 L67 T44 2002
 
A pop-up museum housed in a magic lantern introduces the reader to the history of museums from ancient Greece through the 18th century. Hand drawn copperplate etchings, based on old engravings depict the earliest museums in Europe. Two accordion-fold illustrated texts printed on both sides. Issued in long folding case. The trade edition is a facsimile of a limited edition of ten copies.
MEDIAEVAL IN PADUA 
Russell Maret
New York City: Russell Marat, 2008
NK3630.8 I8 M37 2008
 
Illustrations printed on double leaves. Designed and letterpress printed by Russell Maret. Photographs were printed offset by Artale Graphics. Paper is Mohawk Superfine. Text is set in a new type designed specifically for this book by the author. The face is closely based on John Baskerville’s Great Printer typeface. Handsewn paper case binding with an extended spine hollow and printed dust jacket. Edition of two hundred and twenty-six copies. University of Utah copy is no. 53, signed by the author.
 

EXCERPTS FROM THE FOUR BOOKS ON ARCHITECTURE
Andrea Palladio (1508-1580)
Bremen, ME: Red Angel Press: 2008
NA2515 P253 2008
 
Andrea Palladio designed some of the most beautiful buildings of his time, including the Villa Almerico-Capra. The text for this edition is taken from chapters of his book Four Books on Architecture, on the construction basics of classic architecture – sand, stone, timber, and metals – giving a precise analysis of them. Printed on Fabriano Artistico paper. Title-page is printed in brown and black with Caslon. Text is set in Bembo. Text illustrated with two architectural renderings by Palladio. Includes paper cast rendering of the Villa Almerico-Capra mounted on the back of the cover. The front cover is split in the center of the book and the pages open both to the left and right, the two facing gatherings to be read sequentially across both gatherings opening by opening. As the pages are turned, the leaves are trimmed narrower, gradually revealing the cast paper bas-relief image of the façade of La Rotonda on the inside back cover. Bound in tan cloth with the title “Palladio” printed in deeper brown to the left of center. Edition of fifty copies, signed and numbered by the designer/artist/publisher, printer, Ronald Keller.
 

 

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