Joha Baptist Bodoni
. This celebrated printer
of Parma was, no doubt, the most distinguished
in his profession during the eighteenth century.
He was bom at Saluzzo in the Sardinian states,
February 16, 1740, of a respectable but humble
family. He learned the rudiments of his art
in the office of his father. At eighteen years
of age a desire to improve his condition induced
him to undertake a journey to Rome. There
he visited the printing house of the Propaganda.
His general demeanour and vivacity attracted
the notice of the abbate Ruggieri, the superintendent
of that establishment, and he was
engaged there as a workman. In 1766 the
suicide of Ruggieri rendered Bodoni’s longer
stay at Rome insupportable from regret. He
accepted an offer, made by the Marquis de
Felino, whereby he was placed at the head of
the press intended to be established at Parma,
and settled there in 1768. Hence he issued
some beautiful specimens of his art. His most
sumptuous work was his Homer, in three
volumes folio, printed in 1808. He was a
sufferer from gout, to which a fever was at last
superadded, which terminated the life of this
eminent typographer in 1813.