Luca Valonta & Michele Costantini

Grafiche Ellemme

Typographer

©SusannaPozzoli2024

Printing against the odds

Michele and Luca are a garrison of letterpress printing in Venice
In 2019 the high waters of the lagoon destroyed their workshop
Supporters from all over the world helped them save their endangered business

Michele Costantini and Luca Valonta opened Ellemme Grafiche in 1989 in keeping with the renowned Venetian printing tradition started by Aldo Manuzio at the end of the 15th century. Their workshop houses an old Platina Heidelberg press and two printing presses for printing lead and wooden movable type on precious papers. The workshop created the Veneziastampa® registered trademark to protect the works and artists for whom they produce original designs in small print runs. Being part of the five founders of the Museo Diffuso della Carta e della Stampa (the Expanded Museum of Paper and Print) of Venice, Luca and Michele have also designed, formatted and printed a series of posters with Venetian sayings that prove very popular with locals and tourists alike. Their passion and desire to pass on the craft are conveyed in typography courses designed to nurture creative ideas, composition, inking and actual execution, using the fully functioning antique wooden characters and manual presses of their precious craft.

Interview

©SusannaPozzoli2024

What contribution do each of you provide?: Michele: Luca is a printer in the classical sense of the craft. He learned from his father, who used to work with lead characters. I specialise in digital printing. Depending on what machine needs to be used, one or the other of us is involved, including for the graphic layout and for developing an idea.
What is something few people know about your craft?: Luca: Everything that is printed must first be designed. We do everything here. People think in digital terms. Here they enter a different world. They think the old machines in the workshop are just there for show, on display like in a museum. But we use them and they can also be dangerous.
What are your favourite tasks in the workshop?: We like to hold master classes, where we set up the form with large Venetian characters, and participants produce seven to eight prints on excellent quality paper, with different colour intensities and imperfections. It takes several goes to get it right because you can only see the result when you pick up the sheet of paper.
Is there a type of paper you prefer to work with?: Rosaspina Fabriano with 60-70% cotton in the fibres. It is a high-grade artistic paper for letterpress printing. It captures the ink really well and is watermarked. But we use lots of different types of paper and cardboard, depending on specific requirements.

Luca Valonta & Michele Costantini are expert artisans: they began their career in 1989 and they started teaching in 2019