- Giambattista Bodoni
Engraver, typographer and editor born in Saluzzo and dead in Parma in 1813. Compositor, as far back as 1758, in the printing house of Propaganda Fide a Roma, in 1768 he was asked to run the printing house Regia of Parma where we began to print valuable editions, using inks mixed by himself. In 1771, he established his own typography where he cast characters of a rare perfection and printed editions which became immediately famous for their fine engravings, the beauty of their coat of arms, the elegance of the front pages, the quality of the paper and the nature of the inks. He printed Classical Greek, Latin, Italian and French editions using the above method. Amongst the most famous editions to be remembered are: The "Epithalamia exoticis linguis reddita" (1775), the works of Orazio (1791) and of Poliziano (1795), "La Gerusalemme liberata", the "Oratio dominica" (1806) and the "Iliade" printed in 155 languages.The rules of his art were written by Bodoni himself and are demonstrated in the "Manuale tipografico", pubblished after his death by his widow Margherita Dall'Aglio in 1818. A complete collection of his editions are preserved in the Museo Bodoniano, next to the Bibilioteca Palatina of Parma (the museum was recognized through an official decree in 1962).
