After a decade of quiescence Legacy of Letters is back with a new lettering tour of Italy. This time the tour, led by Paul Shaw and Alta Price, will bypass Rome and Florence and instead explore the Veneto and Emilia-Romagna regions. They are home to some of the most exciting, though lesser-known, lettering in a country rich in extraordinary lettering. The ten-day tour will go from Aquileia to Rimini with stops in Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Padua and Ravenna. Some of the sites to be visited will be San Marco and the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, the Scipione Maffei collection of Roman inscriptions in Verona, the Tipoteca in Cornuda, the Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini, and the mosaics of Sant’Apollinare in Classe.

The Legacy of Letters 2010 tour will focus on inscriptional lettering from ancient Rome to the Baroque, Renaissance manuscripts and incunabula, 19th-century Italian wood type, Fascist inscriptions, and 20th-century Italian metal type. A calligraphy workshop and letterpress workshop are scheduled for one weekend along with informal conversations with several contemporary Italian graphic designers.

As a break from such a deep immersion in letters, there will be visits to several of Palladio’s major buildings, the Canova museum, and several architectural works by Carlo Scarpa. There will also be opportunities to enjoy the great food and wine of the Veneto and Emilia-Romagna regions. Thus, the tour should appeal to calligraphers, typographers, graphic designers, art historians, artists, architects and anyone who loves letters.

The 10-day tour is $3900*. The price includes hotels, breakfast, special meals, buses and other transportation, and museum and other entrance fees. It does not include the cost of travel to and from Italy or lunch and dinner. The tour will be limited to 12 people maximum in order to keep it intimate.