[SPECIAL PRESS] HAGIA SOPHIA. WITH AN UNFINISHED ENGRAVING BY VICTOR HAMMER

Lexington, Kentucky: Stamperia del Santuccio, 1978. Very Good binding. Quarto; in copper and gold marbled boards, backed in faded red cloth; [v] leaves, 8 leaves; printed in terra cotta and black, with an unfinished engraving by Victor Hammer; with some discoloration to the edges of the pastedown from the binder's glue; a previous owner note indicates that this is one of 46 copies.~~"When in 1962, Thomas Merton gave the manuscript of "Hagia Sophia" to the Stamperia del Santuccio to be published under its imprint, two editions were planned: the first to be a small issue of fifty copies on Magnani paper with frontispiece engraving "Hagia Sophia and the Young Christ", after Victor Hammer's triptych painting, 1953-1956. The text pages for this edition were printed in 1961, but as the engraving was not finished, the decision was made to reset the type and print a variant edition on Whatman paper as Opus VIII, 1969, of Stamperia del Santuccio imprints. Victor Hammer never finished his engraving. Now, a decade after his death, and the death of Thomas Merton, the pages of the text that he had printed and the unfinished engraving, printed here from the brass plate as he left it, are together in remembrance in this small volume. C.R.H., December, 1978.". Very Good binding.