Palazzo Orfini

Palazzo Orfini in Foligno is associated with a landmark in Italian printing: in April 1472 Johann Numeister and the Orfini family produced the first printed edition of Dante's Divine Comedy here. The building now houses the Museo della Stampa.

Why it matters

Numeister, who had learned movable-type printing in Gutenberg's Mainz, established a press in the Orfini palace with support from the family, members of whom were papal mint masters. On 11 April 1472 the press completed the first printed edition of the Divine Comedy. The museum presents the history of printing in Foligno, from paper-making and incunabula to the city's later printed works and almanacs.

What to notice

The palace stands beside the former podestà palace, joined to it by an elevated passage. The brick section with its ogival arch belongs to the communal building, where Foligno's first communal statute was instituted in 1265. The portal dates to 1515. The museum entrance is beneath a Renaissance portal bearing the inscription LABORANDUM UT QUIESCAS. Inside, the ground floor presents paper-making and a reconstruction of a fifteenth-century wooden press. Upper rooms display incunabula, printing matrices, early newspapers, almanacs including Barbanera, and material on Foligno's printers from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

Context and history

Printing reached Foligno through the collaboration of Numeister and the Orfini family. The Divine Comedy edition of 11 April 1472 was the press's best-known production, with Emiliano Orfini associated with its production. Sources differ on the name of a financier credited alongside the family, so no single name is asserted here. Palazzo Orfini remained the family's residence before becoming home to the printing museum.