La Divina Commedia

di Dante Alighieri

I have to be honest, this is not the most beautiful book I have worked on.  It is an old school text book, and the quality is, to put it kindly, poor.  But to my client it was very precious, because he had studied it as a child, as had his father and his grandfather.  So there are notes in all three hands all over the text.  How could I refuse to help?

There, the end result is quite good I think. Especially given its starting point - as you can see from the photos of the inside below.

Another view. I stayed with a really classic design for this classic of Italian literature.

A view of the slipcase and the endleaves - a beautifully painted paper by Claire Guillot.

Another view of the spine of the volume and the slipcase. I love the contrast of the sober leather and the really popping lining of the case.

From this side you can see that the book is heavily damaged and repaired. I do love that s;lipcase lining - it reminds me of the very mouth of hell, appropriately.

That's me!

The volume peeping out of its case. Much more sober when you can't see the lining.

Lovely headband - they were such lovely colours to work with. And the beautifully rounded top of the slipcase.

You can see how heavily damaged the pages were. I used a special Japanese restoring paper that is gossamer thin and a bitch to work with. But the result means that you can still read the notes - even the faded pencil ones - but the page edges are protected and will not continue degrading.

Another shot of a restored page. Not pretty, but at least the book, and more importantly the notes, are saved.

Photos by Nikolaus van der Pas

Gilding by Patrick Prouteau, Paris

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