The Most Beautiful Book in the World
Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano, a volume of photographs of this Renaissance master’s sculptures, is being dubbed by its publisher as "the most beautiful book in the world." (With a retail price of 100,000 euros or about $155,000, I should hope so. But a sleek black case and a 500-year guarantee is thrown in for good measure.)
Using the high standards of the privately published books in the 19th century — an ideal known as the “book beautiful” — as a starting point, Gruppo FMR sought expert artisans from various fields to complete the project.
Aurelio Amendola’s black-and-white photographs were printed on paper made exclusively for the project. There are detachable reproductions of Michelangelo drawings on handmade folios. And then there’s the cover - a scale reproduction in marble of the “Madonna della Scala,” a bas-relief of the Virgin and Child sculptured by Michelangelo when he was still in his teens. (The original is housed in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.)
Because the book is so labor-intensive, buyers should expect a six-month wait. The book coincides with the 500th anniversary of the first painted stroke on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican, which took place in May of 1508.
See a brief video presentation of the book here.
