TECA

Printing for the Blind. Uses of Print by Visually Impaired People in Early Modern Italy

Laura Carnelos — 2024-05-09

During the Middle Ages, confraternities of blind people began to emerge in many Italian cities. Later recognised by local authorities and the Roman Church, they ensured that blind people were aided in case of poverty, sickness or death, also providing formal permission to beg on the street and other designated places. These special privileges existed alongside indulgences granted to those (whether visually impaired or sighted) who attended religious functions celebrated by the blind on particular days. This article analyses how these blind individuals used a variety of printed material to promote such indulgences, as well as other activities of their confraternities within and outside their cities.

The Rediscovered Choir Books of the Benedictine Abbey of Santa Maria del Monte in Cesena

Beatrice Alai — 2024-05-09

The article presents an unpublished cycle of choir books written and illuminated at the end of XVI Century for the Benedictine Abbey of Santa Maria del Monte, believed to be lost. The volumes were taken from the Abbey during the suppressions of religious orders, eventually being forgotten in the storage of the Biblioteca Malatestiana. The production of liturgic books in the late Renaissance is studied on the basis of the documents in the State Archive and the signatures of scribes and artists hidden in the pen flourished initials. A new artist is discovered, Ignazio da Otranto, co-authoring these books with his confrere Serafino. The relationships between this cycle and others in the Benedictine Roman Province during the XVI^th and XVII^th centuries are investigated, throwing light on the exchanges among the Cesena Abbey and the Abbeys in Ravenna, Subiaco and Farfa.

«Ogni minimo errore esce vergognoso, e spesso anche fa gran danno al componimento, e all’onor dell’autore». Giacomo Leopardi’s Publishing Habits

Elena Santin — 2024-05-09

Leopardi's didn’t neglect properly editorial and book aspects of his literary work. In this context, it becomes significant to conduct in-depth research aimed at reconstructing the author's publishing habits. In his Epistolario, Leopardi talks to printers, publishers and cultural organizers, but also with friends and relatives, recipients of recounts and comments on some episodes of his experience in the world of printing. Through letters it is possible to identify the peculiar position of Leopardi as a writer within the Italian publishing and tipographical scene.

Giulia Napoleone in the Story of Her Books

Marco Vitale — 2024-05-09

This essay reconstructs the history of Giulia Napoleone's art books, small volumes in single copies with poems transcribed by hand and illustrated with various techniques: a exercise which began in 1963 and which the public was able to get to know for the first time during the 2017 exhibition at the Central Institute of Graphics (Istituto Centrale per la Grafica), following a major donation from the Artist. These books testify to the special relationship that Giulia Napoleone has always had with poetry, a source of inspiration and reciprocity even for larger works, such as pictorial cycles or monographic exhibitions, which go beyond the book form. At the same time, these small private books are also seen as germinal cells of the larger books, printed in a limited number of copies by reputable international art publishers, and distinguished by an iconographic apparatus including unique engravings which vary from copy to copy.

La Divina Comedia di Dante Alighieri illustrated by John Flaxman and Tommaso Piroli (1793, 1802). Dante in the book market between the 18th and 19th centuries

Eleonora Guidi — 2024-05-09

In 1792, in Rome, the Dutch collector Thomas Hope commissioned the first exclusively illustrated edition of the Divine Comedy to the English artist John Flaxman. The first publication, limited and for private circulation, was distributed by the engraver Tommaso Piroli’s workshop in July 1793, and Hope, holder of the rights, forbade the printing of further copies. However, in 1802, Piroli repurposed the engravings from Flaxman’s illustrations for a new edition which was distributed throughout Europe, immensly successful as evidenced by the editions of the Comedy in the first 19th century in which they were included. The collaboration between Flaxman and Piroli, their relationship with Hope and the history of this illustrated Comedia, born from a rigorous neoclassical theory on the relationship between poetry and art, establish themselves as a living testimony of Dante’s reception between the 18th and 19th centuries through a study of the dynamics in book market.

The Library Inventory of a Palermitan Bibliographer: the Books of Antonino Mongitore (1663-1743)

Claudio Gino Li Chiavi — 2024-05-09

Antonino Mongitore (1633-1743) was a scholar and bibliographer, who trained at the Jesuit College of Palermo then he was ordained a priest in 1687. Fellow and founder of numerous academies, he was involved, mainly, in city history and hagiography. His Bibliotheca Sicula is a well-known bio-bibliographical repertory published in two volumes, the former in 1707, the latter in 1714. This paper originated from the finding in the State Archives of Palermo of the inventory of its library, full of 2775 editions, examined according to the quantitative method. An initial analysis of this document and the study of further sources allow us to broaden this Sicilian priest's cultural profile and interests.

Incunabula of the Pellegrini Family from Borgo a Mozzano (Lucca, Tuscany)

Davide Martini — 2024-05-09

The paper provides copies descriptions of two incunabula printed in Venice and preserved at Municipal Library «Fratelli Pellegrini» in Borgo a Mozzano (Lucca, Tuscany): a Divine Comedy of 1493 (ISTC ic00614000; GW online 6972) and a collection of Cicero’s works printed in the year 1500 (ISTC ic00614000; GW online 6972). Both come from the ancient library belonging to the Pellegrini, one of the most powerful families since the XVII^th century, which accumulated an extensive library and archive. The paper also focuses the attention on Prof. Francesco Maria Pellegrini (1855-1927), who engaged in a careful reordering of his family library.

In memoriam – Alberto Petrucciani (1956-2023)

Maria Gioia Tavoni — 2024-05-09

‘Imago librorum. Mille anni di forme del libro in Europa: atti del Convegno di Rovereto-Trento 24-26 maggio 2017’, a cura di Edoardo Barbieri; introduzione di Frédéric Barbier; indici di Stefano Cassini, Firenze, Olschki, 2021

Paolo Tinti — 2024-05-09

‘Crafting Knowledge in the Early Medieval Book: Practices of Collecting and Concealing in the Latin West’, edited by Sinéad O’Sullivan and Ciaran Arthur, Turnhout, Brepols, 2023

Carlotta Barranu — 2024-05-09

Milvia Bollati - Marco Petoletti, ‘I manoscritti miniati in Italia della Biblioteca Ambrosiana (fondo inferior). Il Trecento’, Roma, Viella, 2022

Beatrice Alai — 2024-05-09

‘Suor Eufrasia Burlamacchi (1478-1548). Scrivere, miniare, cantare nella Lucca del Cinquecento. Catalogo della mostra (Lucca, Biblioteca Statale, 23 settembre-18 novembre 2023)’, a cura di Loretta Vandi, Lucca, Maria Pacini Fazzi, 2023

Davide Martini — 2024-05-09

‘Librorum fragmenta. Incunables i manuscrits reutilitzats en la Biblioteca Històrica’, por Francisco M. Gimeno Blay, Susana Gonzàlez Martínez y Mónica Pintado Antú, [València, Biblioteca Històrica de l’Universitat de València], 2023

Davide Martini — 2024-05-09

‘Con la penna e con il torchio. Scritture politiche e normative di prìncipi e città nell’Italia centro-settentrionale della prima Età moderna. Atti del convegno internazionale (Milano, Archivio di Stato, 14-15 dicembre 2023)’, a cura di Davide Martini e Marco Francalanci, «Annuario dell’Archivio di Stato di Milano», 2021

Damigela Hoxha — 2024-05-09

Francesca Nepori, ‘I frati cappuccini tra letture e librarìe’, Imola, Editrice La Mandragora, 2023

Giuseppe Lipari — 2024-05-09

Francesco Dendena, ‘Le biblioteche della Nazione. Politiche e usi del patrimonio librario dalla Repubblica Cisalpina al Regno d’Italia (1796-1805)’, Roma, Viella, 2023

Jacopo Arnoldo Bovino — 2024-05-09

Jan Tschichold, ‘La forma del libro’, Vicenza, Ronzani Editore, 2022

Chiara Reatti — 2024-05-09

Danielle Magnusson, Laura Cleaver, ‘The Trade in Rare Books and Manuscripts between Britain and America c. 1890-1929’ e Kate Ozment, ‘The Hroswitha Club and the Impact of Women Book Collectors’, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2022-2023

Davide Martini — 2024-05-09

‘Books that Made History. 26 Books from Leiden that Changed the World’, edited by Kasper Van Ommen and Garrelt Verhoeven, Leiden, Brill, 2022

Maria Alessandra Panzanelli Fratoni — 2024-05-09

Paola Castellucci - Sara Mori, ‘Suzanne Briet nostra contemporanea’, con la prima traduzione italiana di ‘Que’est-ce que la documentation?’ (1951), Milano, Mimesis, 2022

Paolo Tinti — 2024-05-09

‘Exposer en bibliothèque. Enjeux, méthodes, diffusion’, sous la direction d’Emmanuèle Payen, Villeurbanne, presses de l’Enssib, 2022

Anna Manfron — 2024-05-09

The Book Fools Bunch, con Carla Ghisalberti, ‘Guida tascabile per maniaci dei libri per ragazzi’, Firenze, Edizioni Clichy, 2023

Silvia Cuppini — 2024-05-09

Anna Ferrando, ‘Adelphi. Le origini di una casa editrice (1938-1994)’, Roma, Carocci, 2023

Roberta Cesana — 2024-05-09

Matilde Fontanin, ‘Dalle fake news all’infodemia. Glossario della disinformazione a uso dei bibliotecari’, Milano, Editrice Bibliografica, 2022

Roberta Turricchia — 2024-05-09