Arno River Press

The Press

Arno River Press resides within the Florence School of Fine Arts in the historic center of Florence, Italy next to Piazza Santa Croce and a few steps away from the Uffizi Gallery. The facilities are located in the former studio of Renaissance writer, architect, and painter Giorgio Vasari, who received the palazzo from Grand Duke Cosimo DeMedici in 1555. Arno River Press is integrated with the print media and photography departments at the Florence School where historical printing equipment lives alongside computers and other digital media used in our teaching, publishing, research and outreach programs.

Committed to cultural preservation and the promotion of work by emerging artists, the press is continually evolving with its exploration in both traditional and innovative techniques for producing high quality artists books and printed ephemera. Printing with an 1862 Hopkinson and Cope Albion Iron Handpress text is set with beautiful historical Italian and French wooden and metal type, custom ink colors mixed by hand and printed on handmade and fine papers.

Illustrations are created by hand ranging from intaglio process's of engraving and mezzotint and the relief processes of wood engraving, linoleum cuts, and silkscreen. Photo Imagery is created with a variety of printing processes including salt prints, platinum/palladium, cyanotype, van dyke, photo lithography and risograph printing. The printed pages are bound in traditional and contemporary book structures using a variety of fine materials including leather, book cloth and papers often with an option of a slipcases or drop spine box to hold them.