life. The duke of Parma died suddenly and mysteriously in 1802, the duchess fled to Prague, and the French swooped in to fill the vacuum. Bodoni, who lived to work, was apolitical and had no trouble in allying himself with the new régime. His fame became comparable to that of today's rock star. Visitors flocked to his print works on the banks of the river Parma, wanting a glimpse of him working in his studio. Benjamin Franklin, a printer himself, wrote a fan letter. In 1805, even the emperor Napoleon and empress Josephine visited the city and asked to see him; alas, that very day Bodoni was confined to bed with a disastrous attack of gout, a disease that was to plague him until the end of his life. On his trip to Paris to crown Napoleon emperor, Pope Pius VII had been impressed by a copy of Jean-Joseph Marcel's "Oratio Dominica," which contained the Lord's Prayer in 150 languages. Visiting Bodoni on his way back to Rome, he challenged him to surpass the Frenchman's achievement. Bodoni took up the challenge, and in 1806 he was able to present the Pope with an "Oratio Dominica" in 155 languages. Before his death on 30 November 1813, Bodoni had started work on a series of French classics for his new patron, Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law. The "Théatre Complet de Jean Racine" was on the press on the day of his death. His favorite title page was the one for "Boileau Despréaux." He had to cut the type expressly for the title to fit on one line. It would be up to Bodoni's widow to complete the series. Margherita Dall’Aglio Bodoni picked up where her husband left off, completed the French classics, and then five years after Bodoni died, published the Manuale typografico of 1818, the specimen book to end all specimen books. Published in two volumes, it was over 600 pages long and contained 265 pages of roman characters, “imperceptibly declining in size, romans, italics, and script types, and the series of 125 capital letters; 181 pages of Greek and Oriental characters; 1036 decorations and 31 borders; followed in the last 20 pages by symbols, ciphers, numerals, and musical examples.” Since 1813 Bodoni Museum The Museo Bodoniano was opened in Parma, Italy in 1963. The entrance is shared with the Biblioteca Palatina, both housed within the museum and theater complex of the