The Oratio Dominica was published by Bodoni in 1806 to celebrate the trip of Pope Pius VII to Paris for the coronation of Napoleon. In addition to a preface by Bodoni himself in French, Italian and Latin, and a dedication to Prince Eugene of Beauharnais, who financed it, the work contains the translation into 155 languages of the Pater Noster, the largest catalog of alphabets and characters ever published. The Franco Maria Ricci edition is an anastatic reproduction of Bodoni's volume and was created to celebrate the pontifical journey of Paul VI. A second volume dedicated to the Pope's speech to the United Nations (1965) for world peace is thus added to the reproduction of the Oratio Bodoniana. The two volumes are an unmissable work for bibliophiles: the individual characters of the different fonts and alphabets were reconstructed one by one by copying the letters of the original onto graph paper and acquiring them photographically. The laid paper is of very high weight and bears the papal coat of arms in watermark and the binding is in leather with an imprint of the papal coat of arms.
