At long last, the Belle Lettere Award book is finally ready.

The printers, Centro Offset Master, and the photolithographer, Color Lux, have done a magnificent job.

The result is a 24 x 30 cm, 208 page hardback in long-life acid free quality paper with cover and cardboard box containing an accurate reproduction of all the works which competed in the 1997 Belle Lettere Award.

Two pages have been dedicated to every piece: a close-up page on the left and the entire work on the right. A total of 78 works by 50 artists from 12 different countries have been published.

The book also includes the essays "The pleasure of showing and looking at words" by Manfredo Massironi and "Between word and image" by Tiziano Santi, in Italian with English translations as well as comments by Thomas Ingmire, who provides his expert opinion on modern calligraphy and divides the works into 6 different groups. Lastly, an article by Monica Dengo presents Thomas Ingmire's own latest works.

The cost for all this, borne entirely by the printer, was considerably high. One thousand copies of the book have been printed and we hope they will help make the art of calligraphy, which we all love so much, become a little more popular.

Another heartfelt thanks goes to all the authors whose works have made the publication of this book possible.