On September 18th, in partnership with the Embassy of Japan, the Embassy of Italy organized the launch of the Montalian Catalogue “Love Bites” at Wai-te-ata Press, the printing house of Victoria University, founded in 1962 and now a centre of excellence for research in typography, book history, and publishing practices.
The volume, edited by Prof. Marco Sonzogni, professor of translation studies, and Prof. Sydney Shep, lecturer in Book History, was produced with the support of this Embassy and accompanies the restoration of a school edition of the Divine Comedy, published by Hoepli in the early 1900s. The copy belonged to Nobel Prize winner Eugenio Montale and was donated by him in 1938 to Irma Brandeis, an American intellectual and literary critic, Dante scholar and the inspiration for the figure of “Clizia” in his poetry.
The restoration of the volume revealed a previously unknown detail: the book’s cover had been rebound by Irma Brandeis, an enthusiast of Japanese art and culture, using a page from a 1973 Japanese calendar.
The page was printed using the kataezoma technique by artist Takeshi Nishijima (1929–2003), one of the leading printmakers of the twentieth century.
The event featured contributions from the Ambassador of Italy, the Ambassador of Japan, the book’s restorer, and students from the Department of Japanese Language, who collaborated on the translation of the calendar’s text.
A reading of Montale’s poems commemorated of the 50th anniversary of the poet’s Nobel Prize and the centenary of the publication of Ossi di seppia (Cuttlefish Bones).
The restored copy of the Divine Comedy is currently held at Notre Dame University (Indiana, USA), on permanent loan.
The event offered a valuable opportunity to enhance the cultural dialogue not only between Italy and New Zealand, but also between Italy and Japan.
