Giambattista Bodoni. Valerie Lester
and effusively wordy tombstone, alas now almost illegible.
LIFE IN ROME went swirling on. Visitors kept coming and going, eating and drinking. On the subject of eating and drinking, Smollett notes: “. . . the vitella mongana, which is the most delicate veal I have ever tasted, is very dear . . . Here are the rich wines of Montepulciano, Montefiascone, and Monte di Dragone; but what we commonly drink at meals is that of Orvieto, a small white wine, of an agreeable flavour.”63 Casanova gave a dinner party for the family of Momolo (an ex-gondolier who became a sweeper for the pope) whose daughter he was aiming to seduce, and comments, “The polenta was excellent, the pork superb, the ham perfect. In less than an hour there was no longer any sign that the table had once been covered with things to eat; but the Orvieto wine continued to keep the company cheerful.”64 Charles de Brosses admitted to being bowled over by the exquisite flavor of Tiber sturgeon. Hot chocolate and ices were all the rage. Tomatoes were a recent phenomenon and were still regarded with suspicion. A few years later, in the poem “Er pranzo e el minente,” (translated by Gillian Riley), Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli exulted in the variety and excellence of Roman food.
Just listen to what we had. Rice and peas,
A stew of beef and turkey cock,
Beef topside pot roast with cloves, a right old dish of tripe,
And spit roast sausages and pork liver.
Then a fry-up of artichokes and sheeps’ balls,
Some sinful gnocchi to die for,
A puffed-up take-away pizza,
Sweet sour wild boar and game birds.
There were peppers in vinegar,
Salami, mortadella, and a fresh sheep’s cheese,
House plonk,65 and wine from Orvieto.
Next some divine rosolio,66
Coffee and sweet bread rings,
And radishes to gladden the heart.67
Visitors from abroad streamed into the city. On 15 October 1764, Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, wrote: “I was sitting and reflecting among the ruins of the Campidoglio, with the barefoot brothers singing vespers in the temple of Jove, when for the first time the idea of writing about the decline and fall of Rome came to mind.” Meanwhile, James Boswell was spending almost all his time with women, but not just prostitutes. On 16 February 1765, he noted that he danced and dined with the young Swiss/Austrian artist, Angelica Kauffmann, and then chatted with her, calling her “paintress singer; modest, amiable,” adding “Quite in love.”68
Bodoni persisted at the press, but he was exhorted by the circle of virtuosi in which he moved to think of a life beyond Rome and particularly of a life in England. “In the eighth year of his training, all spent in assiduous study,”69 states De Lama, “in much production, and in extremely costly experimentation, he was seduced by large promises of fortune that certain virtuosi, extolling the generosity of Britain, constantly repeated in his ear.” Ambition and curiosity were tempting him north to sharpen his skills in a wider arena than Rome.
At the time, Britain was on its way to becoming a rich and inventive nation. Already a center of world finance, the country was on the brink of the Industrial Revolution. More important to Bodoni, it was a center of printing ingenuity and home to such luminaries as the Caslons (father and son) and John Baskerville (1706-1775). Their fame had spread to Rome in books carried there by tourists and collectors, and these books were quickly snapped up by bibliophiles like Winckelmann and Cardinal Spinelli. Bodoni, by now 26 years old, was languishing at the Propaganda Fide, no longer challenged at the press, and by 1766 had become infatuated with the idea of going to England and seeing with his own eyes the innovations within the British printing industry. All that held him back was his loyalty to Abbé Ruggieri. Many years later, when he was an old man, Bodoni’s brother Giuseppe recalled the tragic incident that happened next (although he was seriously wrong about the year in which it occurred):
Bodoni usually took himself each morning to the home of his Maecenas [Ruggieri]. One day like many others (and if I am not mistaken it was 11 November 176270) finding out that Ruggeri was still in bed, he was detained by the manservant in the antechamber. While he was waiting, he heard a shot from a firearm. He jumped at the explosion, and then found the poor man lifeless from the desperate shot of a pistol. This tragic spectacle affected him like a thunderbolt . . . Thus ended the days of that famous man of letters who, by a thousand titles, deserved a better end.71
John Thomas Baskerville (1706-1775).
Passerini continues: “It is impossible to express the fright, the sorrow of the highly sensitive Bodoni. Here lay this man, who had fallen on his side as though struck by lightning or by a huge, deadly rock.”72
Depression kills, but even so Ruggieri’s suicide provokes speculation.73 First, it seems surprising that he had a pistol in his possession. Second, his timing, at a moment when he knew Bodoni would be arriving for their daily walk, seems thoughtless at best, even willfully cruel. Was he angry with the young man? Had they fallen out? Was his suicide an act of vengeance? We will never know the truth, but poor Ruggieri must have been suffering such exquisite anguish that nothing could prevent him from pulling the trigger that ended his life.
But now Bodoni was free to leave Rome, and no one could change his mind; not Cardinal Castelli, the new prefect of the press; not Marco Ubaldo Bicci, who succeeded Ruggieri as superintendent; not the members of the artistic and literary circles in which he swirled; not his colleagues and friends at the Propaganda Fide. Undeterred by his inability to speak English and in the mistaken belief that (due in part to the popularity of Italian opera and song) all educated Britons would naturally speak Italian, he was confident he would have no difficulty in making himself understood.
Bodoni was primed for his grand adventure, but before leaving Italy for England, he decided to return to Saluzzo to set eyes on—and to embrace—his family and friends for the first time in eight years.
A synopsis of the roman types of William Caslon (top), John Baskerville (center), and Giambattista Bodoni (bottom); all in modern digital renderings.
Ornaments from an early Bodoni type specimen, Fregi e Majuscole, 1771.
3
The Invitation
He is full of talent, industrious, and honorable.
PAOLO MARIA PACIAUDI
BODONI’S TRIP to England was doomed from the start. Whining in the marshes of the valley of the Tiber lay a formidable enemy, the blood-sucking female Anopheles mosquito, vector of malaria, carrier of the deadly parasite Plasmodium falciparum. A democratic predator, she was responsible for the deaths of ordinary citizens, cardinals, and popes — and was very nearly responsible for the death of Bodoni himself. Symptoms of malaria include anemia, bloody stools, chills, coma, convulsion, fever, headache, jaundice, muscle pain, nausea, sweating, vomiting. It usually starts with fatigue and weakness, then come the high fever and sweating, which alternate with the chills.
Stung by such a mosquito as he left Rome, Bodoni remained healthy to all appearances during the parasite’s incubation period of eight to fourteen days. He made it safely to Turin, where he visited Domenico Costa’s mother, and together they set out for Cervignasco, a small town immediately north of Saluzzo,