Behind the Door by Giorgio Bassani

Bassani’s book was originally published in 1964 as Dietro La Porta. Translated from the Italian by William Weaver, this first American edition was published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1972.

The dust jacket by Loretta Trezzo references the paintings by Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico. The typeface is ITC Bernase Roman (1970), an interpretation of the genre known as De Vinne in the US and Romanisch/Romana in Germany. Like many other styles from the turn of the century, the genre regained popularity in the late 1960s/early 1970s, see e.g. Hawthorn (Letraset, 1968). The version by Ronné Bonder and Tom Carnase is distinguished by a peculiar monocular a (not used here) and a “laughing” e with diagonal bar (cf. Roxane Gataud’s Bely Display, 2016). Image Club made a digitization in 1992, but it’s neither complete nor well spaced, and seems to be no longer available. Benjamin Critton’s Nazareth (2016) is a mashup of ITC Bernase Roman and Trooper Roman, but unfortunately doesn’t acknowledge the sources.