Manuale Tipografico (reprint)

The Manuale Tipografico of 1818, posthumously printed by Bodoni’s widow, Margherita Dall’Aglio, who continued to run her husband’s printing establishment, represents the synthesis of Giambattista Bodoni’s career, and contains, in more than six hundred plates, Latin and exotic letters and over one thousand ornaments and engraved borders by the great typographer. Ricci’s reprint, combining the originai materiai and the results of researches carried out in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, is in three volumes. To the two in facsimile, a study volume has been added, in four languages. 

It was written by Angelo Ciavarella, director of the Bodoni Museum at the time. Besides containing a historical and bibliographical essay on Bodoni ‘s methods of creating and casting type, it is supplemented by highly unusual documents of extreme importance, such as page proof s, drafts, discarded sheets, letters, inventories of matrices, etc., all in exact facsimile of the originals. 

The edition is limited to nine hundred numbered copies, each inscribed with the name of the purchaser on the Palatine Apollo bookplate, granted to this work by the Biblioteca Palatina itself. The three volumes are bound in full leather (each hide is used only for a single cover) The handmade paper was prepared at the old Pietro Miliani papermills in Fabriano, which once supplied paper to Bodoni. Thanks to the fortunate rediscovery of the originai watermarking form, belonging to Marie Louise, duchess of Parma, it was possible to prepare paper for the flyleaves identical with that of the period, and with the watermarked image and coat of arms of the duchess.