The Temptation of Saint Anthony
Kentfield, California: The Allen Press, 1974.
Limited Edition. Hardcover.
Allen Press Book #40. Limited edition of one hundred forty copies. Translated from the French by Justin O'Brien. Edited by Francis Carmody.
The type faces are Menhart Unciala for the text, and Solemnis for display; both types were set by hand. The mould-made rag paper is ‘Michelangelo’, from France, and was printed damp on a Columbian handpress manufactured in 1846. The binding cloth, a fifteenth-century Persian motif with gold stylized Egyptian palm trees on a turquoise background, is by Fortuny, hand-blocked in Venice, Italy. Designed, printed, and bound by Lewis & Dorothy Allen at The Allen Press. Prospectus laid in.
Embellished with twenty-four illustrations from early 19th-century sources which were used by Flaubert; and also a full-page wood engraving of Saint Anthony by Odilon Redon.
From the Allens:
There is a theory among typographers that the esthetics of type pages can be enhanced when the shape of the types conforms with the dimensions of the text page. The Unciala type-face, based on fifth-century Roman calligraphy, seems well suited to this antiquarian Christian legend – and also harmonious with the squarish dimensions of the text page.
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) became intrigued with the temptation of Saint Anthony by a stained-glass window in Rouen cathedral which depicts the Saint as a hermit. Anthony (251?-350), born in upper Egypt, experienced, says tradition, every temptation the devil could devise, including the sensuous charms of the Queen of Sheba. Anthony resisted and was the first official Christian hermit and the first to establish monasteries.
Item #9025969-3/4 x 13-1/2", turquoise and gold decorated cloth, paper spine label with turquoise print, deckled edges, 82pp, 90 leaves printed in two colors throughout, 24 duotone illustrations, hand-colored decorative woodcuts, prospectus laid in.
Glue offset toning to paste-down endpapers and endpaper gutters, else a clean, crisp, bright copy, very fine in original plastic dust wrapper.
Price: $425.00