BREVIARIUM ROMANUM

EX DECRETO SACROSANCTI CONCILII TRIDENTINI RESTITUTUM SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM CURA RECOGNITUM

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Liturgical books have always revealed both the skill of the craftsmanship and the quality of the art any particular age could achieve. To assess such achievements, not only all features inside the book must be considered (such as paper and fonts), but the exterior of the volume as well. Following the best of this tradition, our new edition of the Breviarium Romanum will stand out as a liturgical book that indeed epitomizes the very best that can be produced in large quantities in our day. We take pride in having partners in this endeavour, who share our high standards of quality. Lost for the most part in today's world is the fine art of liturgical bookbinding once common among bookprinters and bookbinders. So we are happy to present you with these volumes rivalling the best the craft has produced in the past.

	Bible paper; 28gm toned off-white paper This breviary has been printed on a good quality off-white bible paper, 28 grams per square meter (28gsm). (In contrast, regular copy paper is 80 gsm (or 21lb wt). Today there are only two companies in Europe able to manufacture this kind of ultra thin paper at all. Worldwide there is only a handful of printers able to produce a bicolour printing with such fine paper, and still be able to fold and crease the sheets. In its weight and color, this paper is of a similar quality to the paper generally used by liturgical publishers in the past. It is impossible to use paper any thinner than this! Because the sheets are so fine, the volumes are only 30 and 32mm thick, and measure 1460 pages per inch (575 pages / cm)!
	Cover and Measurements The cover is made of relatively smooth flexible leather. Each volume is 11.8 cm wide and 18 cm high. They weigh 540 and 480 gramms, respectively. The spine has embossed lettering in gold, and five imitation raised bands. In addition there is blind embossing around the entire cover.
	The cover is flexible leather The cover is made of relatively smooth black calf leather. In the picture you can see that the cover will be just as flexible as were earlier breviaries. In addition we set special value on the feature that after flipping the book open the volume in fact stays open and does not fold up by itself. By our skilled use of various techniques we have effectively achieved a desirable result comparable to that of older editions of breviaries.
	Rounded corners, gold edging, ribbon markers A "sine qua non" for liturgical books is rounded corners. This prevents wrinkling or creasing or any other damage to the thin bible paper. And of course, these volumes have gold edges on all three sides. Indeed rare in these days are the six ribbon markers, each affixed in a different spot at the head of the book. This must be done by hand since modern bookbinding machines can only affix two ribbons at a time, and only in the same place. Our bookbinders are in this present time unique in offering this. The green ribbon might be slightly lighter than in the current photo. According to the advice of experienced priests we only chose dark colors, so they still remain attractive after the volumes have been used for a while.
	Special Details When planning this new edition, a most important feature was that it be user-friendly. Durability was also an important feature to consider. A weakness found in many modern liturgical books is the so-called "inner hinge" (i.e. the hinge is the point where the bulk of the book, or the block, is attached to the cover). By the use of special techniques, we have assured that the inner hinge is strong and long-lasting. The pages of the book should be protected from holy cards or prayer cards that might be put in the book by the owner, because these cards might be humid and could damage the bible paper. In order to prevent this, we chose watertight endpapers of artificial leather, that are of the same quality as as materials used in the older breviaries. This photo shows another detail that will be even more obvious once you have the book in your hand and are using it. The red (or black) artificial leather of the endpaper has a snow-white back. In order to prevent this snow-white colour from contrasting with the first page of the block (with its slightly yellow tone) the back of the endpaper has been laminated with the same paper as the first pages of the text. This is visually more pleasing as well, because one doesn't see a strip of snow white paper down on either side of the opened pages. It prevents a visual distraction this way.
	Prayer Cards The two volume set will be accompanied by 8 separate prayer cards. These cards contain text that is often repeated. To see information about the content of these cards see the tab labelled "Interior". In order to make the cards more durable, we had them laminated both front and back. This prevents creasing or wrinkling, and even the soiling of its surface from much use. The cards also have rounded corners in order to protect the pages of the book, and the card itself.
	Breviary Cover - Supplementary Equipment Since publishing the new edition of the breviary, we have received many requests for a special cover to protect the volumes. Unfortunately these days there are available only zipper covers of various sizes. One standard zipper cover currently available fits our breviary volumes. But we don't think it provides adequate protection for such precious books. Over time almost inevitably the edges of the pages will get damaged by the zipper movement, or the zipper itself can leave an impression on the pages. Besides the ribbons can be torn. So we consider it important to avoid a zipper breviary cover. So we finally decided to do what the great liturgical publishing houses used to do, and look for an outside manufacturer who could produce a good protective cover, of the best imaginable quality similar to those found with earlier editions of the breviary. We were fortunate enough to find two manufacturers who were willing to produce a breviary cover according to ours specs. These will provide adequate protection, according to our high standards. The pictures on this page show their traditional-style covers. The book is slipped into the slipcase, as if it were put into an envelope, and the flap is closed to completely cover the book, with a tab for easy opening. Each of these designs has its own advantages, and so we decided to order some of both. We can't however guarantee which covers will continue to be available in the future, so we are offering BOTH at the same price. It used to be the common practice to have only one breviary cover, which could be used for either volume (whichever is currently in use is in the cover, and the other safe at home). The price for each breviary cover while ordering a complete set of the Breviarium Romanum: 30,- EUR (no additional cost for shipping). The same price applies for all customers who purchased a Breviarium Romanum prior to Easter 2009 directly from nova & vetera (shipment: Europe: 5,- EUR, World: 8,- EUR). Price for each breviary cover without ordering the set of breviaries: 40,- EUR plus shipping If you wish to order this cover, please go to the "ordering info" page, and request this item in the remarks section. In order to demonstrate the functionality of this tpye of breviary covers we uploaded some fotos to a special section of our main website. Please visit: http://www.novaetvetera.de/galerie_liturgica/gal_22.html