Giovanni Battista Pasquali



Giovanni Battista Pasquali was a leading printer in 18th-century Venice, supported by the British consul Joseph Smith (1682–1770), a patron and collector. Pasquali was a scholar himself, who published his own essays as well as finely printed, unpretentious editions for a scholarly readership. He signed the Latin preface to his printed catalogue of Smith's distinguished library, Bibliotheca Smithiana, seu Catalogus librorum d. Josephi Smithii (Venice: Pasquali, 1755). Pasquali's peers in the revival of fine printing among the presses of Venice were the editor and connoisseur Giovanni Battista Albrizzi and the political writer and publisher Antonio Zatta.