The Printing Museum Ludovico Pavoni in Artogne
The Typographical sign

Writing is essential for the development of the civilization among men. It is the conventional representation of the language by means of signs that make possible the graphical interpretation of thought. 

    Ludovico Pavoni to whom the museum is dedicated.

It is according to this concept that the museum can be seen as an educational path through the discovery of the writing and the different printing processes from  old to  modern techniques. We can find the concreteness and permanence of the signs in the rock engravings, papyrus (3600 BC), writings on panels (2500 BC), parchments (180 AD), paper (150 AD), the evolution of the numbers and of the alphabet until the present time. The invention of movable letters by Johan Gutenberg (1400-1468) marks the birth of printing. Between the XIX and the XX century was used a linotype mechanical typesetting machine until 1980-85. In 1981 the first electronic-mechanical typesetting machine arrived in the Camonica Valley. In the museum you can see a manual machine of the early twentieth century with Art Nouveau structure (still working). This printing museum is the result of Simone Quetti’s passion, “the linotyper of the Camonica Valley” to whom belongs the idea, the project and the realization of this museum which is an important cultural contribution to the tourist beauties of the Camonica Valley. Simone Quetti has dedicated sixty years of his life to printing. He entered the “Pavoniano Institute”  of Brescia in 1950 (the first Italian printing school founded by Ludovico Pavoni in 1821) where he learnt the typographic arts. When he finished the school he returned to Artogne where he opened his linotype business and where his brother Mattia opened his typography. In the early 80s the “Linotipia Quetti Simone” gave way to the “photocomposition” and after that he kept up with the fast changing  printing evolution and realized in Artogne a modern graphic and typesetting company named “Qcinque”. In the premises of the old “Linotipia” he realized the printing museum where there are machines and tools of the typographic art and among them his “inseparable Italtype”, of the 60s, the Italtype mod. Alfa is the “Queen” of his museum. In this museum you can admire ancient printing presses and lithographic presses, an old engine platen press and an ancient manual planecylindrical press of the IXI century are in contrast with the “modern Hdidelberg” row press of the 1960s and with the “Albert Automat Frankenthal” plane cylindrical press of the 1950s. You can also find knives, staplers, bookbinding presses and all sorts of printing tools, so as to reconstruct the entire process of realization of a book. All the machines in the museum are in very good condition and still working.

Simone Quetti Italtype in working order The museum

Early "writing" rock art. Valle Camonica has the largest concentration in Europe.

Come and visit us !