early
last July (I cannot find an exact date) Alessandro Zanella, handprinter, of the
Edizioni Ampersand, Verona, Italy, died unexpectedly. I can find almost nothing
online that registers this event, or honors him, or gives even a short story of
his life – and I’m sorry to say I cannot make up that lack here – Alessandro
Zanella has been in my mind as a printer for a long time, first as a colleague
& fellow printer with Richard-Gabriele Rummonds, and then out on his own as
Edizioni Ampersand – in part this attraction was one of those romantic &
purely emotional “connections” in that one of New Zealand’s best known literary
printers, Denis Glover (1912-1980) of Caxton Press used to write to me as ‘Dear
Ampersand Alan’ (I used ampersands in my poetry, something he would never do) –
and I once wrote an essay titled &
the ampersand, which I printed in 1990 – but I knew he printed on a rare
Stanhope iron handpress (the only one I had seen was given the late D F
McKenzie and his Wai-te-ata Press at Victoria University of Wellington in New
Zealand by Cambridge University), and I knew that he taught handpress printing,
and at one time I seriously considered signing up but the costs were then
prohibitive for me – rummaging about online I found a nice tribute of one his
teaching classes by Marnie Parsons of Running The Goat – and here you can find a
short account of the course and some fine pictures of the students in action,
taken by Alessandro himself -
when I
found out that he had passed away I contacted Vamp and Tramp Booksellers and I
now have one of the most beautiful books in my collection, Persephone by Yannis Ritsos with woodcuts by Joe Tilson – exquisite
printing, beautiful design, and a screenprinted paper over boards cover, the
text printed in both Greek & English - Vamp and Tramp still have a few
copies of a few of Ampersand’s titles –
