The complex patterns and brilliant colors are the first things you observe when visiting Paolo Olbi’s bookshop in Venice, Italy, next to the Ca’ Foscari bridge. His meticulously arranged handmade books, notebooks, and stationery are like antique postcards.
Paolo Olbi, a 78-year-old native Venetian who is well dressed and groomed, is both a caregiver and an artist. “I began learning handcrafted bookmaking when I was 18,” he explains. “And I’m still enjoying it after 60 years.”
The books for sale at the bookshop are typically hand-bound, using processes learned exclusively via apprenticeships with craft experts. When he started this business, Venice had around 20 traditional bookbinding businesses. He is now one of only three.
Venetian bookbinding origins
Printing dominated most of Venice’s street life in the 15th century. The city’s little calles (streets) were packed with the workshops of various craftspeople involved in the book business, as detailed by Alessandro Marzo Magno in Bound in Venice: The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book.
People who wanted to make books went there to acquire loose sets of printed pages, which they then took to binders, illustrators, and goldsmiths to make a book. There was no predetermined pricing. Instead, in what Marzo Magno refers to as a “Middle Eastern souk,” bargaining was the order of the day. By the 16th century, Venice had half of Europe’s print businesses.
Paolo Olbi’s first encounter
When Paolo Olbi was 12, he first encountered this historic bookbinding tradition.
“As a gift, my elder brother handed me a used adventure book by [Emilio] Salgari,” he adds, referring to one of Italy’s most translated authors. “I quickly began repairing its shattered cover.” Paolo Olbi’s passion for covers is seen throughout his business. Manutius’ image rests over the shelves. “That man,” he says of the painting, “liked books and felt they had to be beautiful, and I agree.”
A century-old technique
Making a book from scratch necessitates accuracy, skill, and a thorough understanding of the materials. First, pages are cut from enormous sheets of paper with a knife, always with the grain. Then, each page is perforated with a needle to form a sequence of holes for stitching. Finally, each page is sewn together with cotton, hemp, linen, or nylon thread.
The thread thickness determines the thickness of the bound pages. “Bound pages should be thick enough to slip into the cover organically,” says Paolo Olbi. “If they are too thick, they won’t fit, and if they are too slim, they will slip away.”
The appropriate thickness for a standard volume, the paperback size, is generally two millimeters. “If you do your work well, bound pages should fit like a tailor-made suit,” Paolo Olbi explains, adding that he only glues the cover to the beginning and final pages of the book, leaving the other pages to “rest” on the spine.
He creates a cover by cutting cardboard for the “skeleton” using a circular knife. He then chooses material for the outside, commonly paper, cloth, or leather, but it can also be tile or glass. “Paper coverings are the simplest,” he argues. “I choose the paper, design a sketch by hand, color it, cut it, and adhere it to the cover with PVA glue.”
Leather coverings are more durable. However, the leather must first be trimmed to suit the cover, which might be difficult, and then patterns are pressed into the leather using hot molds.
Modern-day challenges
Paolo Olbi is struggling to keep his publishing business. Afloat, sometimes literally. “When the canal overflows, we need to get things off the floor immediately,” he explains.
When the water came to the level of the tables, it ruined several materials. Dealing with acqua alta (tide peaks) isn’t the only difficulty maintaining a traditional bookbinders shop in Venice.
Despite the difficulties, Paolo Olbi continues to work and organize a network of bookbinding aficionados. “We’d want to repurpose part of Ca’ Zenobio’s rooms into a cultural center,” he says. “It would be known as the “Aldine School.'” In his conception, the school would serve as a bookstore, a workshop, and a cultural center where tourists could meet artists and authors.
Paolo Olbi is now discussing the concept with Samuel Sarkis Baghdassarian, cultural affairs manager for the Armenian community in Venice.
