born Feb. 16, 1740, Saluzzo, Piedmont
died Nov. 29, 1813, Parma, French Empire
Italian typographer.
Son of a printer, he served an apprenticeship at the press of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. In 1768 he assumed management of the Royal Press of the duke of Parma. By the 1780s he was designing his own typefaces; the Bodoni typeface appeared in 1790 and is still in use today. He became internationally known and collectors sought his books. His many important works include fine editions of Horace (1791), Virgil (1793), and Homer 's Iliad (1808).