Beauty Unfolds: Leporello and Concertina Books

The term leporello refers to printed material folded into an accordion-pleat style. Also sometimes known as a concertina fold, it is a method of parallel folding with the folds alternating between front and back. The name likely comes from the manservant, Leporello, in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. Famed rogue and lover Don Giovanni (in Italian - also known as Don Juan in Spanish) has seduced so many women that when Leporello displays a tally of his conquests, it unfolds, accordion-style, into a shockingly long list. Many leporellos are used as a way of telling a story, while others are purely visual. In the Victorian era, leporellos were quite commonly used as travel souvenirs, depicting beautiful, panoramic scenes of the places travellers had just seen, customs and culture of the region and the like. They are often used in illustrated children's works, as well. Collectors of books and paper ephemera will love their scarcity and delicate beauty.

Days in Catland  Arthur Burnaby and Louis Wain		The Story of Miss Moppet Beatrix Potter
19th century Fruit Tree Salesman's Sample Books Various		Batak tree bark Divination Book
Leporello album of Monastic Orders Author Unavailable		In Bosnien hat der Tod Getanzt (In Bosnia Death Danced) Heinz Keller
Costumes Suisses (Swiss Costumes)  Author Unknown		Dreaming in Color  Tara Law
The White Alphabet Ronald King		Costumi Degli Ordini Religiosi (Costumes of Religious Orders)
Hawaiian Fishes  Author Unavailable		Every Building on the Sunset Strip by Ed Ruscha
Kleederdragten der Bewoners van Nederland (Costumes of the Residents of the Netherlands)		Danske Uniformer (Danish Uniforms)
Alphabet Ancestors Cari Ferraro		Aeolian Giraffes Lois Morrison