From the beginning, Alberto Tallone Editore embraced Charles Péguy’s maxim «A book’s true beauty is in the manuscript, without illustrations, the beauty of its typography, its print run, without color, the beauty of paper». The company was founded by Alberto Tallone in Paris in 1938, when Tallone took over the 18th-century typographical studio – at the time owned by Maurice Darantière –, which is
the oldest one in the world still in use. Tallone believed what was beautiful and what was true should merge into one finished product. We might say he worked according to the Platonic ideal of ‘kalokagathia’, the fruitful encounter between ethics and aesthetics. Literary critic Gianfranco Contini, upon seeing the 1949 Italian edition of Petrarch’s “Canzoniere” – a work of art that poet Giuseppe Ungaretti did not hesitate to call “a miracle” – commented: “The idea that beauty could merge into truth sprung naturally within Tallone”. The Bergamo-born publisher, was obviously convinced that book design and philological accuracy should always go hand in hand. The long history of this publishing house and its catalogue – brimming with masterpieces – are a testimony to the fact that he reached his goal.
