30 SONETTI - GIORGIO BAFFO

This is one of 34 numbered copies, printed letterpress on cotton paper made in Sicily.

A volume in the 4vo format (36x23cm) of 42 pages typeset by hand in Caslon type, which was cast in the original 18th-century matrixes.

The sonnets are a hymn to life, to carnal pleasure, and to the memory of pleasure itself, because by now everything exudes decay, not only the physical decay of the poet, already at an advanced age, but also that of the Serenissima Republic of Venice which has lost its hegemony. It is therefore worthwhile to Baffo, a contemporary of Vivaldi and an open anticlerical, to rhyme a personal ‘Glory’ and celebrate that pleasure which generation after generation has not changed (from the foreword by Fulvio Testa).

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Altri canta le Furie de Bellona,

Altri le azioni dei Cavalieri Erranti,

Altri i casi, e i sospiri dei Amanti, 

Mi voi cantar le glorie della Mona.

Dove se puoi trovar più bella, e bona

Materia, che interessi tutti quanti?

[…] Se sà, ch’ogni Creatura

Gà una diversa forma de pensar,

Ma tutti pò se accorda in tel chiavar;

Se andaremo a viazar

Vedaremo infinite variazion

D’Abiti, de Costumi, e Religion.

Chi magna el Pan a Corni, e chi ‘l Pan tondo,

Ma alfin la Mona piase a tutto ‘l Mondo. 

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The volume is housed in a slipcase and box, custom hand-made to an exact size, whose exteriors are covered with Ingres paper. The book title is letterpress-printed on the slipcase’s spine.

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Neither monotype nor linotype are used. These typesetting systems from a keyboard are often passed off as manual typography. The Tallone Press also does not print from plastic plates derived from digital compositions (photopolymer plates).