Old Books and TeddyBoy
Two old books are resting against TeddyBoy’s side. The book with the whiter pages is Italian…published in 1764 in Venice and contains the libretto (words) of Italian poet, Pietro Metastasio, who mostly wrote operas. This guy rocked…he wrote the words to 800 operas including the words to an opera by Handel. The copy I have is a 12th printing. Opera back then was the equivalent of rock n roll today.
The other book is a publication of the Psalms, published in 1815 in Haverhill, Massachusetts.
As you can see the pages in the Psalms book are disintegrating. They’re very brown, fragile, ripping easily, and have worm holes because the paper was made out of wood pulp. Wood pulp paper disintegrates. Although a great step forward in getting loads of paper made quickly, it was a huge step backward in the quality of paper.
The Italian book’s pages were made out of old linen and rags; and bleached in fields under the bright sunlight. The paper is in great condition even though it is about 250 years old.
http://www.judyfolkenberg.com/ (my clueless care taker’s book arts website)
Nessun commento :
Posta un commento