History

In 1561 Pius IV called P.. Manuzio to Rome to establish an official printing press, which at the end of 1563 passed into the ownership of the Roman municipality or Roman ‘people’. The most notable products of the Press of the Roman People were the Canones et decreta Concilii Tridentini (1563) and the Catechismus ex decree Concilii Tridentini (1566).

The Vatican printing press, established in the Vatican Palaces by Pope Sixtus V by the bull “Eam semper”, was even more closely dependent on the Holy See. Its direction was entrusted to D. Basa, while the younger A. Manuzio was given the task of revising the editions (1590). Both Latin and oriental characters were supplied to the printing press by R. Granjon’s Parisian factory. The editions produced by the Vatican Printing Press include the Bible corrected in accordance with Tridentine principles (edition revised by A. Manuzio, 1593). After a long period of limited activity, the Holy See printing press enjoyed a remarkable revival with Leo XII in 1825, publishing among other things the works of A. Mai. A further revival occurred in 1884 during the pontificate of Leo XIII.

In 1626 Urban VIII founded the "Polyglotta Vaticana of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide", in order to provide the publications necessary for the missions. He obtained a large quantity of typographic materials (23 alphabets), supplemented by the oriental characters given by the Vatican Printing Press and by the Oriental Medicean Press. The creation of new characters was entrusted to the engraver S. Paolini. The press mainly printed religious and grammatical books, and dictionaries. After the middle of the 18th century, under the direction of the erudite abbot C. Ruggeri, there was a second period of intense activity.

In 1937 Pope Pius XI entrusted the Direction of the Vatican Press and the Administration of “L’Osservatore Romano” to the Salesian Society of Don Bosco. In 1991 the Vatican Polyglot Press and the press of “L'Osservatore Romano" were merged and managed under the sole direction of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

The building that stands today was constructed in 1908 during the papacies of Pius X and Benedict XV. With the extensions and renovations of 1991 it reached a volume of 35,000 cubic meters.

The equipment currently consists of:

Photocomposition - computer systems for word processing of texts, layout and imposition, OCR readers, laser printers for drafts, 70x100 plotter, one of which is used for certified colour proofing with front/back devices, colour scanner.

Offset and Roto-offset - Roland 704 (74x104) 4-colour, convertible, with oven and ink cooling system; Roland 705 74x104 in 5 colours with oven and ink cooling system; Roland 702 74x104 two-colour, convertible, with ink cooling system. Also present are Roland Praktica 35x50 with bustometric and numbering systems.

The rotary press (roto-offset) is a Rockwell Super Gazette for printing the products of the L’Osservatore Romano with folding and collating, and machines for packaging newspapers.

The plates for offset and roto-offset printing are engraved with Lotem CTP.

Set-up - the packaging chain is complete with Wohlemberg (paperback). Fully automated folding, stitching, gathering and cutting.

Manual Handcrafted printing - there are printing machines, with "hot" system for gold impressions and systems for embossed punching.

Binding and artistic production - various machines for the processing and realization of manufactured items into precious materials (diploma/parchments,  parchment, leather, balacron, imitlin, skyvertex cover materials).