M. Moleiro Editor

M. Moleiro Editor is a publishing house specialising in high-quality facsimile reproductions of codices, maps and illuminated manuscripts. Founded in Barcelona in 1991, the firm has reproduced many masterpieces from the history of illumination.

Background

In 1976, whilst still a student, Manuel Moleiro created Ebrisa, a publishing house specialised in books on art, science and cartography which collaborated on a variety of joint enterprises with other publishers including Times Books, Encyclopædia Britannica, Macmillan, Edita, Imprimerie Nationale and Franco Maria Ricci.[1]

In 1991, Moleiro decided to create a company with his own name and brand. Since then he has specialised in identical reproductions of some of the greatest medieval and Renaissance bibliographic treasures, obtaining authorisation to do so from libraries and museums of great universal renown such as the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the British Library, the Morgan Library & Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the National Library of Russia, the Huntington Library and the Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon.[2]

To certify this labour of cultural diffusion, each facsimile has a companion volume of studies by manuscript experts.[3]

Publishing activities

As a result of publishers applying the term “facsimile” to different types of reproduction of poor quality in recent decades, M. Moleiro Editor decided to label their codices “quasi-original” to reflect the accuracy of their reproductions. In 2010, the French newspaper Le Monde wrote, "The Spanish publishing house Moleiro has invented the “quasi original”, a more appropriate term for describing the extremely painstaking artisan work involved in manufacturing these works which are more like clones than facsimiles".[4] Indeed, no expense is spared in any of their editions to duplicate the texture, smell, thickness and variable density of paper and parchment, the gold in the miniatures, the leather bindings, and thread used to sew them. The resulting copies are therefore deemed to be clones and not merely reproductions.

All this publisher's editions are unique, first editions, limited to 987 numbered copies authenticated by notary public.

In 2001, The Times described the work of this publishing house as “The Art of Perfection”.[5] One year later in the same newspaper, Allegra Stratton wrote that "the Pope sleeps with one of Moleiro's quasi-originals by his bed".[6]

Landmark works reproduced by M. Moleiro Editor

M. Moleiro Editor has reproduced several works by Beatus of Liébana – the Cardeña Beatus, the Arroyo Beatus, the Silos Beatus, the Beatus of Ferdinand I and Sancha and the Girona Beatus – and also the three volumes of the Bible of Saint Louis, deemed to be the most important bibliographic monument of all time with a total of 4887 miniatures. Their catalogue also features many books of hours such as the Isabella Breviary, the Great Hours of Anne of Brittany and the Book of Hours of Joanna I of Castile; medicinal treatises such as the Book of Simple Medicines and Tacuinum Sanitatis and cartographic masterpieces such as the Miller Atlas and the Vallard Atlas.

Complete list of “quasi-original” editions
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References
  1. Fonseca, Jesús. "Las joyas bibliográficas de Moleiro". Diario de Burgos, March 25, 2011.
  2. Fonseca, Jesús. "Moleiro recupera a la Reina Isabel". Diario de Burgos, December 24, 2010.
  3. Fonseca, Jesús. "Las joyas bibliográficas de Moleiro". Diario de Burgos, March 25, 2011.
  4. "A Jaca, l’art roman reconnaisant". Le Monde, September 20, 2010
  5. "The art of perfection". The Times, April 23, 2001
  6. Stratton, Allegra (23 April 2002). "A literary favour to world culture". The Times (London). Moleiro manuscripts are so highly regarded that when President George W. Bush visited Madrid last year, the Spanish Government presented the American First Lady, Laura Bush, with a Book of Hours. The Pope, another loyal fan, keeps his copy of Moleiro's Martyrologies by his bed... The British Library owns all three of Moleiro's maps and Oxford's Bodleian has just bought the £9,000 St Louis Bible; of which Moleiro has already sold 500.
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