Ca. 1768 - 1813. Parma, Duchies of Parma and Piacenza. Appointed directory of the Stamperia Reale of the Duke of Parma in 1768. First specimen book 1771. Died 1813. Final specimen book, the Manuale Tipografico, published posthumously (1819). No direct relation to the 20th century Officina Bodoni.
1916. Cleland
Cleland, Thomas Maitland. Giambattista Bodoni of Parma. (Boston: The Society of Printers, 1916). A digital version of the University of California copy of this book, including the original page scans, is available at The Internet Archive; the link at left goes there. Here is a local copy of the PDF version and the (nicer) DjVu version.
1913. Barbèra
Barbèra, Piero. G. Batt. Bodoni. (Genoa: A. F. Formíggini, 1913). A digital version of the University of Toronto copy of this book, including the original page scans, is available at The Internet Archive; the link at left goes there. Here is a local copy of the PDF version and the (nicer) DjVu version. This volume contains the copy of the portrait of Bodoni used as the "topic" icon for this page. Note, however, that both the DjVu version and (especially) the PDF version have annoying visual artefacts due to JPEG conversion. For a version without these, you'll need to retrieve the original JPEG-2000 page scans.
The Internet Archive also (in 2011) contains digital versions of Giuseppe De Lama's Vita del cavaliere Giambattista Bodoni (1816, in two volumes) and Jacopo Bernardi's Vita di Giambattista Bodoni (1872).
1788. Serie de Caratteri Greci
Serie de Caratteri Greci di Giambattista Bodoni. (Parma: Bodoni, 1788.) Extracts in de Jong, vol. 1, pp 92-93.
This series is of particular interest to typefounders because each body size has its own face. That is, not only do these types not scale linearly over the body sizes in terms of weight and relative form, they do not scale at all in terms of typographical features. This defines a basic principle of series of types over a range of body sizes; it deserves more consideration in new types.
1819. Manuale Tipografico
In 1819, Bodoni's widow published his final specimen book, the Manuale Tipografico (in two volumes).
In 2010, the German publisher Taschen reprinted it in a lovely single-volume edition (1232 pages, albeit on thin paper) edited by Stephan Füssel. ISBN-10: 3836505533. ISBN-13: 978-3836505533.
An original copy has been digitized by Octavo and is viewable online at http://www.rarebookroom.org/bodtip
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