
The printing of a masterpiece
Loney, Alan (1940- )
2008
North Fitzroy, Vic: Black Pepper
Biographies
_ pending _
686.2092 LONE
For loan
Once copy only
I cannot think of any work that resembles The printing of a masterpiece. It is a memoir of the flowing intermesh of typography, ink-and-paper, Renaissance cultural history and deeply personal, hands-on knowledge. It is about the printing of an exquisite book, an object in which every stage of craftsmanship has been scrupulously considered.
Inside the printer’s narrative there grows, like something marvellous in a tropical aquarium, Leonardo da Vinci’s incipient book on Nothing. The printing of a masterpiece pays its tribute to predecessors and exemplars; to Aldus Manutius, Joseph Moxon or Eric Gill. The reader is gently led to feel inward with Process. It’s a book about making, and about understanding. We come away knowing a great deal more than we did.
Alan Loney is a beautiful stylist - lucid and compelling. He takes us into the heart of that question: How is a book actually made? It is an ultra-fine book whose growth he charts, but what happens happens, in petto, with all printed books. I have never seen paper, ink or type described in such a sexy way, let alone the character of pen nibs. For all its refinement of style and subject matter this text is, as my late Professor used to say, a rattling good read.