Mark E. Fischer
My interest in fine books started to develop when my family moved to Verona, Italy, when I was 10 years old. There, I learned the art of handprinting and fine-press publishing from Gabriel Rummonds, a family friend who ran the Plain Wrapper Press. I founded the Stamperia Ponte Pietra in Verona in 1976. By the time I started college in 1980, I had published four editions: Marsh Marigolds (in English), L’Indovinello Veronese (in Italian), Blue (in English and French), and Est Modus in Rebus (in Latin, Ancient Greek, English and Italian). I had studied these languages while attending the Liceo Classico Maffei in Verona. In college, I studied descriptive bibliography, among other subjects.
As one might expect, I collect press books (Plain Wrapper Press, Edizioni Ampersand, No Reply Press, Officina Bodoni, and Éditions F. Despalles). However, I also have a passion for sixteenth-century Italian and French books. I love the classical late-Renaissance design, the use of red and black ink, the creative typography, and the classical subject matter (Cicero, Caesar, Plutarch). Think Aldus Manutius’s books.
Nicolas de Orbellis. Sup[er] Sentencias Co[m]pendium. Paris: François Regnault, 1520.
Octavo. Title page printed in red and black, featuring Regnault’s large woodcut device with elephant. Text in gothic letter, printed in two columns throughout. Bound in contemporary blind-tooled calf. Title in ink on top page edge. 16 cm. x 10 cm.
Orbellis was a Franciscan scholar and philosopher who taught at Angers. This work is focused on Duns Scotus’s commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard.
Jorge Luis Borges. Siete Poemas Sajones/Seven Saxon Poems. Verona, Italy: Plain Wrapper Press, 1974.
Seven poems in Spanish and a foreword and author’s notes in English by Jorge Luis Borges; English translations of the poems by Alastair Reid and Norman Thomas di Giovanni. With eight blind-embossed ornaments by Arnaldo Pomodoro. 40 pages. 39 x 29 cm. 120 copies. This is copy V.
Hand-set in Horizon Light; title-page lettering by Golda Fishbein. Richard de Bas handmade paper printed damp on a Washington handpress. Bound by Marcello Fornaro.
Antonin Artaud. MAIZUM GOIN – Hommage à Antonin Artaud. Paris & Mainz: Édition F. Despalles, 1989
The texts were sourced from the Oeuvres Complètes of Antonin Artaud (Books XXII and XXIII), published by Gallimard in Paris. The translation into German by Heinz G. Hahs is previously unpublished. The text was chosen, set by hand, and handprinted by Johannes Strugalla. Each volume contains 20 lithographs by Robert Schwarz. Binding by Vitus Münch. The edition is limited to 99 numbered and signed copies and 13 copies not for sale. This is copy #15.