Typography Tuesday: Bodoni
Among the most prominent of 18th-century type designers was the great typographer, compositor, printer, and publisher Giambattista Bodoni in Parma, Italy. Bodoni was especially influenced by the type designs of French type founder Pierre Simon Fournier and the English type designer and printer John Baskerville. Bodoni, along with the French type founder Firmin Didot, established a style of type design that became referred to as “modern,” and in the 20th century is called “Didone,” a term that combines the names of Didot and Bodoni. Bodoni’s typefaces are not revived classical forms, but new, rational designs characterized by a strong contrast between the thick and thin parts of the type body.
After a nearly 20-year period of training, Bodoni became the type designer and printer for the new ducal press at Parma in 1768, where he would spend the rest of his career until his death in 1813. Shown here are examples from Bodoni’s early and later work:
Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi. De hebraicae typographiae origine ac primitiis seu antiquis ac rarissimis hebraicorum librorum editionibus seculi xv. Parmae: ex Regio typographeo, 1776.
Torquato Tasso. Aminta, Favola boschereccia di Torquato Tasso; ora alla sua vera lezione ridotta. Crisopoli (i.e. Parma): Impresso co' tipi Bodoniani, 1796.
The first displays examples of his many fonts for different languages, including Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Syraic, and Arabic. The second displays his classic font (in Italian) in both Roman and Italic. When Bodoni began working for the Duke of Parma, his imprint would usually appear as ex Regio typographeo, without Bodoni’s name (as in the 1776 example above), but one knows this is by Bodoni because he was the only royal typographer from 1768-1813. In 1791, however, as a way to convince Bodoni to remain in Parma, the Duke allowed Bodoni to establish his own private press, and after this period we begin to find Bodoni’s name in the imprint, as we see in the 1796 printing above.
The 20th and 21st centuries have seen an extended revival of Bodoni typefaces in both cold type and digital versions. The 20th-century German-Italian typographer and fine-press publisher Giovanni Mardersteig, was so taken by Bodoni’s type designs, that when he founded his own private press in 1922, he obtained from Italian authorities the exclusive right to utilize a selection of Bodoni’s original matrices, naming his well-known press Officina Bodoni, which continued to produce quality hand-press work to the end of the 20th century under the direction of Mardersteig’s son Martino, the proprietor of Stamperia Valdonega, which was also founded by Martino’s father in 1948.
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