"One day I was approached by an Italian publisher, Art’è of Milan, together with Franco Maria Ricci, founder of the legendary FMR magazine. Every two or three years, this publisher would devote himself to producing an extraordinary book whose sole purpose was not profit but excellence: to create the kind of book that is no longer made, one worthy of celebrating a great text regarded as part of humanity’s shared cultural heritage. Thus were published Don Quixote, Ecclesiastes, Revelation, and The Flowers of Evil.
The Song of Songs was an absolutely magnificent achievement. It was printed by the Imprimerie Nationale in seventeenth-century Hebrew typefaces and introduced by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Councils for Culture, Archaeology and the Cultural Heritage of the Church, and one of the foremost scholars of the Song of Songs. A copy was presented to Pope John Paul II and now forms part of the Vatican Library’s collection.
I had to overcome my initial apprehension before taking on this masterpiece, which tells the leaping, ecstatic course of love and desire. Its singular power lies in the union of ardent sensuality and the sacred—a razor’s edge that is difficult to maintain. How could I possibly resist this love poem—the first, the oldest, the most beautiful—when I believe that every work of art, every poem, every piece of music, every painting should be a declaration of love?"
Pierre Boncompain