[Printing History]

Reglamento para el Regimen Interior de la Imprenta y Encuadernacion del Hospicio Provincial de Valladolid [cover title]

Valladolid: 1885. 28pp. plus folding table. Original grey printed wrappers. Wrappers with two moderate losses at fore edge; slight tear at fore edge, into the text. Minor wear else. About very good. Item #6213

Extremely rare first edition of the founding statues of a printing house employing inmates of the Hospital for the Poor in Valencia. The regulations outline every facet of the new operation and include over a dozen model forms for use in the Escuela de Typografica. The printing establishment employed both permanent and temporary workers and was housed in the Palace of the Provincial Council due to "lack of suitable premises in the Hospital." Temporary workers included assistant typesetters and servant boys, employed as volume demanded; twelve workers were to be sourced from the hospital itself to learn typesetting and bookbinding. The text explains that the purpose of the creation of the School of Typography and Bookbinding at the hospital is to give "artistic-professional education to those residents who wish it". Training was to last three years and be comprised of three groups. The first to learn typesetting and exercises in compositing; the second group to learn correction and imposition on plates and with the press; and the third, pagination techniques for monographs and periodicals, the study of presses and machines, and other "theoretical and practical elements of bookbinding and publishing." Further chapters detail pay rates, individual responsibilities of each staff member, and procurement of materials. We find no copies in OCLC, though one copy is located at the private Fundacion Universitaria Española in Madrid.

Price: $1,500.00