The 2008 Winners

Pablo Alvarez and Keli E. Rylance

on Alonso Víctor de Paredes

The 2008 Fellowship was held by Pablo Alvarez and Keli E. Rylance. The Fellowship Committee’s citation follows:

Pablo Alvarez of the University of Rochester and Keli E. Rylance of Tulane University were chosen as this year’s recipients of the Fellowship. Their proposal is to analyze one of only two known extant copies of Institución y origen del arte de la imprenta, y reglas generales para los componedores (Institution and Origin of the Art of Printing, and General Rules for Compositors) written by Spanish printer and compositor Alonso Víctor de Paredes, ca. 1680. This text pre-dates Moxon’s Mechanic Exercises by about three years. Alvarez and Rylance will examine the copy of Paredes’ text at the Updike Collection at the Providence Public Library in preparation for comparison of the two texts. The other known copy is at the Biblioteca General e Histórica de la Universitat de València (Spain). Their goal is to publish a scholarly bilingual edition of the Instituciónfollowing the high standard set by Herbert Davis & Harry Carter in their 1958 edition of Joseph Moxon’s Mechanic Exercises on the Whole Art of Printing.

The committee was impressed by Alvarez and Rylance’s commitment and careful consideration of the challenge in bringing an obscure text to light, we liked the international scope of the proposal, and its contribution to printing history.