Vincenzo Migliaro (1858-1938) - San Biagio dei Librai (1928)
The Press and bookshop run by the Festa brothers specialised in religious publications, and it printed most of the Pompeii sanctuary’s material in the early years from 1879 until August 1884 (at which point Longo inaugurated the printing press in the Valley of Pompeii).
Until 1884, the Festa press printed leaflets, prayer-books, invitations for the major festivals and the programmes for those festivals, and one of the earliest reproductions of the holy image, in the form of a lithograph created by Gennaro Amato. They also printed the first eight editions of the Rosario e la Nuova Pompei (which appeared between 7th March to 7th August 1884, and which numbered 270 pages in total) .
The shop also temporarily hosted the sacred image when Longo took it into Naples for the restoration by Maldarelli. Longo reports that he ‘left it for him in the bookshop of Salvatore Festa’, after which it would have been taken to Maldarelli’s studio.
Note that another address of the Press and bookshop of Andrea festa is given as “Strada S. Giovanni a Carbonara, 104”. ‘Liberia Andrea Festa’ is listed at this address (104) in 1865 as Naples Stockists of the weekly periodical Il Divin Salvatore, and in 1864 as stockists of La Divinità di N. S. Gesù Cristo by Giuseppe Formisano, who was Bishop of Nola and a supporter of Longo. So this may be the bookshop’s earlier location!
Nicola Avellino notes that a ‘Salvatore Festa’ played the harmonium at the festival of 8th May 1883, and hypothesises that this might indeed be the same Salvatore Festa who ran the Naples bookshop.
