The advent of e-readers might be looming large over the future of print, but that has not lessened the passion for books for the book lovers all over the world. Recently, a rare, 61-pound book called “Michelangelo: La Dotta Mano” (“Michelangelo: The Learned Hand”) was commissioned to celebrate his work. The $126,000 coffee-table book was made by hand and was toiled over by scholars, artists and artisans. The cover of the 264-page book, which took months to print and construct employing Renaissance skills, is adorned with a bas-relief depiction of Michelangelo’s “Madonna of the Steps,” sculptured on a piece of white marble from one of the Polvaccio quarries in Carrara, Italy, that supplied stone for the master’s statues. The New York Times reports, “Its positively sybaritic binding is swathed in red velvet from the same Italian workshop that supplied stage curtains to the Metropolitan Opera and La Scala in Milan. And the book’s photographs and plates of drawings and images of the Sistine Chapel are printed on luxurious paper of pure cotton produced in Italy.”

The creation of the book is “a provocation in the age of the Internet,” said Marilena Ferrari, president of FMR, a fine-art publishing house in Italy. “It is important to reaffirm that books are not disappearing.” So far, only 33 copies of a planned limited edition of 99 have been made out of which 20 had been sold. Though it’s not the most expensive book, itis one of the single greatest books made in the last 100 years. The book was donated to the New York Public Library and will reside in the library’s rare book division.

Via: NYTimes