Artist statement: Giambattista Bodoni – master Italian typographer, designer, printer and all round cool guy! Not surprisingly he was a huge fan of John Baskerville's work. Before his death in 1813, Bodoni had started work on a series of French classics for his new patron, Napoleon's brother-in-law. The work was on the press on the day of his death. No shrinking violet, his widow, Margherita Dall-Aglio Bodoni, picked up where her husband left off, completed the French classics, and then five years after Bodoni died, published the monumental Manuale typografico of 1818, at 600 pages, the type specimen book to end all specimen books.
