Randall McLeod, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Toronto November 4, 2013 (Monday) Butler Library, Room, 523, at 6:00 p.m. The 1501 Venetian Vergil was the first book printed entirely in italics. On the verso of the title page, the printer, Aldo Manuzio, celebrated the type-cutter, Francesco da Bologna. (The two fell out a year […]
Category: Printing History and Book Arts
Christmas in August
A carton appeared in my mailbox late Friday afternoon, a good time for a treat. I opened it and found these: Also in the box was a letter from Terry Belanger of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia. This program, which Terry founded, had its start at Columbia back in […]
RBML Exhibition— “Ernst Reichl: Wide Awake Typographer”
Kempner Gallery July 8 – September 13, 2013 The Rare Book and Manuscript Library is delighted to present a major exhibition of the work of Ernst Reichl (1900-1980), German-American book designer, active and prominent in New York/American publishing from the 1930s into the 1970s. A ‘whole book’ designer, Reichl believed in the harmonious totality of […]
Rare book as artifact
This intriguing object was found on our shelves recently by Tabrizia Jones, our rare book processor. Forty-six issues, dating between 1808 and 1853, of the Neuer Bauernkalendar, an Austrian farmer's almanac, were stitched into a canvas wrapper. Each issue is 32 pages, and is mostly devoted to the hand-colored illustrated calendar showing […]
Never enough Sébastien Le Clerc
I saw Sébastien for the first time last year. Indeed, I fell in love with the beauty of his engravings on viewing his Pratique de la geométrie (Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1691). Although this is a geometry textbook, with plates to illustrate concepts and theorems, my Sébastien added beautiful views and figures to every one […]