Vita di Santa Chiara Vergine composta per Vgolino Verino Cittadino Florentino.

Vgolino Verino.

Vita di Santa Chiara Vergine composta per Vgolino Verino Cittadino Florentino.

Chelsea: Ashendene Press,

1921.

Edition of 236.

I'm captivated by fine and private press materials and their intersection of artistry, social and historical forces, and economic principles (sometimes disregarded). Viewed as less constrained by the pressures of commercialism, these materials allow for the preservation of culture and history that may otherwise be lost to time, often in formats of unusual beauty.

The text of the Vita di S. Chiara is printed in the Ashendene Press’s proprietary Subiaco Great Primer type, modeled after the first type of the early Renaissance printers Sweynheym and Pannartz. The book contains a facsimile of the first four pages of the original manuscript written in Florence in 1496, lost for centuries then rediscovered, and which Hornby acquired in 1918.

Beppy Landrum Owen