Pontiff artfully preserves a little rare copy of article (8)
I believe the answer is:
offprint
'copy of article' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'pontiff artfully preserves a little rare' is the wordplay.
'artfully' is an anagram indicator.
'preserves' is an insertion indicator.
'a little' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letter of 'rare' is 'r'.
'pontiff' with letters rearranged gives 'offpint'.
'offpint' going around 'r' is 'OFFPRINT'.
(Other definitions for offprint that I've seen before include "Extracted copy of an article" , "Copy of issued article" .)