The Petrarch Press » In-Print Publications

Canticle of the Creatures

pressadmin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:17:01 +0000

THE PETRARCH PRESS’S Canticle of the Creatures presents a fresh transcription of Francis of Assisi’s original Umbrian text together with a new English translation by John Venerella. The Canticle, sometimes popularly called Canticle of the Sun, is a short song begun in Francis’s early years and completed near the time of his death. The original text, considered by many to be the earliest poetical masterpiece in the Italian language, is newly transcribed from the oldest remaining manuscript of the song – that in the thirteenth-century Assisi Codex. Francis’s charming verses in Umbrian dialect – praising God through his creations “Brother Sun”, “Sister Moon”, and the four elements – are printed with the English translation opposite.

While the text of the poem has been printed before (short texts are favorite targets for fine press publishers), most break the song into individual verses, printing them on separate pages paired with illustrations of the sun, moon, and so forth. But read in this way, the reader may miss the poetry of Francis’s text – his rhyming early Italian verses, the visual repetition of “Laudato si misignore…”, the simple naivete of his words in song. So we decided to present the full text on a single page with its English reflection facing it. A thin book? Yes, but no less monumental for that.

We designed the book to use the full sheet of handmade paper, folded into an eight-page section, which allowed us to keep both the bottom and the fore-edge deckles intact. However, these large sheets pushed the limits even of our Super Royal Albion handpress, forcing us to find creative ways to position the platen bearers so they didn’t crush the paper.

As none of us here at the Press are fluent in Umbrian, we spent many painstaking hours on proofreading and discussions with the translator. Another challenge was achieving even printing on the large page size. Although the bed on our Albion is impressively flat for a 158-year old press, the many-layered makeready resembled a most intricate mosaic by the time we were ready to print.

Two collectible limited editions of the Canticle are being issued: 6 copies printed on sheepskin parchment, and 60 copies printed on cream-colored handmade paper, produced especially for the Press by Ruscombe Mills in France. The text has been set in beautiful Poliphilus type, with large initial letters in red, designed at the Press in the style of the original manuscript initial. (See the original here.)

Our eight-page edition of the Canticle is printed in Large Quarto format. Both the paper and the parchment editions are bound in half Japanese linen with the boards covered in handmade Nepalese Lokta paper printed with our own Canticle pattern. Parchment copies are ornamented with the sun in gold leaf on the title page and are protected by a slipcase.

Canticle of the Creatures

The Petrarch Press, 2008

10 x 13-1/2 inches; pages 8.

EDITIONS

Parchment

6 numbered copies (I-VI) on sheepskin parchment; bound in quarter Japanese linen with boards covered in printed Red Earth Lokta paper; with slipcase.

Handmade Paper

66 numbered copies (7-66) on handmade Ruscombe Mills paper; bound in quarter Japanese linen with boards covered in printed Nutmeg Lokta paper.

$ 625
Sold Out

$ 260

The Petrarch Press
PO Box 488
9690 Stackhouse Lane
Oregon House, CA 95962
U.S.A.

Tel: +1 (530) 692-9531
Fax: +1 (530) 730-2469

The Gospel According to Philip

pressadmin — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 02:30:48 +0000

The Gospel According to Philip, like the more well-known Gospel According to Thomas, forms part of the extensive Nag Hammadi Library, a group of papyrus codices discovered in 1945 outside the Egyptian village of Nag Hammadi, near Abydos and Luxor. Written in Coptic and dating from the first half of the fourth century, The Gospel According to Philip appears to follow the tradition of the Christian Gnostic teaching promulgated by Valentinus in the second century. While we have both original Greek fragments and a complete Coptic translation of the Thomas gospel, the only known instance of The Gospel According to Philip is contained within the Nag Hammadi codex.

Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount he was not small.

The text, in an English translation by Wesley W. Isenberg, preserves seventeen sayings of Jesus, nine of which are also found in the canonical gospels; the others are unique to this work. Its references to Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ companion and its exploration of the mystical sacrament of the “Bridal Chamber” shed new light on the suppressed traditions of the early Gnostics.

Our edition of The Gospel According to Philip is modeled on the first book issued by Peter Bishop’s Petrarch Press, The Gospel According to Thomas (1986). Hand set and printed on our nineteenth-century Albion handpress, The Gospel According to Philip is 6 x 9 inches in size, with twelve copies printed on sheepskin parchment, and 100 copies printed on dampened handmade paper, produced especially for the Press by Ruscombe Mills in France. The text is set in the beautiful Dante Roman type, with each verse separated by ornaments in red. Both the paper and the parchment editions are bound in simple Roma-covered boards with a printed spine label, and are protected by a matching slipcase. The text runs to 34 pages and is preceded by a brief introduction.

And the companion of the [savior is] Mary Magdalene. [The savior] loved her more than all the disciples and used to kiss her often on her [mouth]. The rest of the disciples... They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?‚" The Savior answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."

Every hand-printed book is the bearer of an untold story-the story of its own making. For Philip, one incident in particular remains vividly in mind. Because the text was set by hand in a continuous block with no paragraph breaks, only one person could typeset at a time. After many late nights in the pressroom, a weary apprentice turned to our pressmaster, William Bentley, in mute need of inspiration. William pulled out the book, Printing on the Iron Handpress by Richard-Gabriel Rummonds, and read, “Printing on the iron hand press does not result in instant gratification.” At once chastened and consoled, we continued working into the night.

The Gospel According to Philip

The Petrarch Press, 2006

6 x 9 inches; pages viii, 34.

EDITIONS

Handmade Paper

100 numbered copies (13-112) on handmade Ruscombe Mills paper; bound in Roma-covered boards with slipcase.

Parchment

12 numbered copies (I-XII) on sheepskin parchment; bound in Roma-covered boards with slipcase.

$ 350

$ 925

The Petrarch Press
PO Box 488
9690 Stackhouse Lane
Oregon House, CA 95962
U.S.A.

Tel: +1 (530) 692-9531
Fax: +1 (530) 730-2469

Thoughts from the Letters of Petrarch

pressadmin — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 03:11:20 +0000

OUR FIRST PUBLICATION, Thoughts from the Letters of Petrarch, commemorates the fine-press tradition of Peter Bishop’s original Petrarch Press. Francesco Petrarca is best known as one of the first writers to experiment with the Italian vernacular for poetic expression. For his letters, however, he relied on the lingua franca of Latin, developing a sophisticated yet intimate style that returned to the more classical forms of Virgil and, above all, Cicero. In these letters – addressed with fine impartiality to friends, poets, and illustrious men both living and dead (including Cicero and Homer) – Petrarch ranges over a variety of subjects, yet always exhibits an earnest striving for greatness of spirit together with a sometimes rueful acknowledgment of his own shortcomings. Passages from his letters were selected and translated by Miss Johanna Lohse (1839-1911) in Florence, and published in 1900 in a charming pocket-sized edition by J. M. Dent & Co. in London. Peter Bishop chose this unusual volume, now rare, to be the first publication of the newly revived Petrarch Press.

I like silence above all things – next to it I like conversing with friends.

The 134-page text was printed by hand, sheet by sheet, on our restored 1851 Super Royal Albion handpress. Twenty copies were printed on sheepskin parchment from England, an edition of thirty on handmade Ruscombe Mills paper from France, and the main edition of 100 on all-cotton Arches Text mouldmade paper, also from France. Peter Cohen’s designs for the book reflect early Italian manuscripts, with their initial capital letters printed in red, suspended in the margins. The bindings, designed by Peter Cohen and executed in collaboration with the Italian bookbinder Tiziano Codina, are in full leather for the parchment edition, half leather for the handmade paper edition, and fine silk for the mouldmade edition.

The hope that we may live even one more day is uncertain. I have always thought with admiration and praise of the saying of an old monk who, being invited one evening by the king to dine with him the next day, answered that tomorrow did not belong to him. A beautiful and impressive answer, worthy of a man who does not deceive himself nor imitate so many others who, hoping for the future, allow the present to escape without profiting by it.

Beautiful end pages were a hallmark of Peter Bishop’s original Petrarch Press. To follow in his footsteps, we created a fanciful leaf design in two colors for Petrarch. We printed the first color run on a bright California day, but when we began to print the second color we could not seem to register the page correctly. A raging storm outside corresponded with our mood, as we tried repeatedly to correct the registration, cursing the platemaker, each other, and ourselves. Finally we checked the page against the first color plate and realized that the humidity had caused the paper to expand. At last we had something to blame-the weather! It continued to rain, but we had a book to print, so we stacked the paper in a closet together with our little space to recreate the warmth of the California sun. Only after several days did the paper return to its original size. Even then, we had to take it out, quickly print it, and then return it to the closet to keep it from changing shape again. For those of you familiar with printing on dampened paper, this is the reverse process, and one more example of the pitfalls that await anyone rash enough to print books by hand.

Thoughts from the Letters of Petrarch

The Petrarch Press, 2004

5 x 7-1/2 inches, pages xvi, 134.

EDITIONS

Mouldmade Paper

100 numbered copies (51-150) on mouldmade Arches Text paper; bound in silk-covered boards with slipcase.

Handmade Paper

30 numbered copies (21-50) on handmade Ruscombe Mills paper; bound in half-Navy leather with printed paper boards & slipcase.

Parchment

20 numbered copies (I-XX) on sheepskin parchment; bound in full Navy leather with slipcase.

Sold out, by subscription.

$ 875

$ 2,750

The Petrarch Press
PO Box 488
9690 Stackhouse Lane
Oregon House, CA 95962
U.S.A.

Tel: +1 (530) 692-9531
Fax: +1 (530) 730-2469