Joseph Kiermeier-Debre

One of a series of four alphabet-themed books issued as a set by Ravensburger Verlag in 1998. This volume reprints the Alfabeto Pittorico of the decorative artist Antonio Basoli, which was first published in Bologna, 1839. This was an album of twenty-five elaborate lithographs, each one featuring an alphabetical character cast in some fantastic architectural form, in a setting contrived to illustrate any number of figures and objects for which there were Italian words beginning with that same letter. A commentary in Italian and French explained the contents of the plates. This reprint adds translations of Basoli’s text into German and English, with additional commentary and notes by Kiermeier-Debre and Vogel. Further to the twenty-four letters he illustrated, Basoli also executed one additional lithograph depicting an ampersand, which, he writes, ‘functions as a kind of index to the work, or rather a visual pot-pourri in which a multitude of objects whose individual names all begin with one of the 24 letters of the alphabet shall appear to be united.’

Basoli (1774-1848) was born in Bologna, where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti, thereafter gradually making a name for himself as a specialist decorator and scene-painter. He is known to have travelled to Venice and Ferrara in 1803, and to Florence, Rome and Milan in 1805. The latter journey included an inspirational visit to La Scala, then apparently a centre of scenographic excellence. In the years that followed, Basoli did a great deal of scene-painting and production design for the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, endeavours which were recorded in two books published in 1810, and 1821. Basoli also published a treatise on domestic decor in 1827, and a volume of a hundred vedute of Bologna, in 1833. Beginning in 1803, he taught at the Accademia where he had studied, at length being appointed ‘Professor of Ornament’ there.… (meer)