“Preposterous thicks and thins”: i libri ideali di William Morris fra intermedialità e teoria sociale

Abstract

Print and typography fulfil a peculiar role among the numerous expressions of the osmosis between verbal and visual art pursued by William Morris. His ideal book – a material object and an object d’art – raise fundamental questions about the interdependence of word and image, the connections between form and content, the role of art in society, the interactions between aesthetics and politics. The reasons why Morris criticized Giambattista Bodoni have been overlooked until now; they need to be investigated, because they reveal how aesthetic and ideological views intertwined in the late 19th and early 20th century evolution of typography and book design.