The Renaissance in Italy
SUBJECT READER COMPILED BY CATHERINE KOVESI
WEEK 12
Printing, Communication and the Renaissance 12.1_Printing.Sources In Venice: A Documentary History, Chambers, edited by D.W. and B. Pullan, 369-375. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992. 12.2_Eisenstein Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. ‘The Unacknowledged Revolution’. In The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early-Modern Europe, 3-42. London: Cambridge University Press, 1979. 12.3_Burke Burke, Peter. ‘Early Modern Venice as a Centre of Information and Communication’. In Venice Reconsidered: The History and Civilisation of an Italian City-State, 12971797, edited by John Martin and Dennis Romano, 389-419. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 12.4_Melograni Melograni, Anna. ‘The illuminated manuscript as a commodity: production, consumption and the cartolaio’s role in fifteenth-century Italy’. In The Material Renaissance, edited by Michelle O’Malley and Evelyn Welch, 197-224. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2007.
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12.5_Salzberg Salzberg, Rosa. ‘Every piece of rubbish given to the press: defining and debating cheap print’. In Ephemeral City: Cheap Print and Urban Culture in Renaissance Venice, 1846. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2014.
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SECTION 1
The Business Organization of Early Printing and Publishing As Audus Manutius's own testimony [IX3] suggests, the introduction of printing and development of publishing in Venice had a profound effect upon cultural life there. When, in the 1470s, printing began to tum the spread of knowledge into big business, Venetian entrepreneurs were fairly swift to move in and take a part in what had begun as mainly a foreign enterprise. Aspects of the early business organization behind this cultural revolution are illustrated in this section. Venice produced roughly a sixth of all the books printed in Europe before 1500, and through investment agents such as Nicholas of Frankfurt soon obtained half the market for academic books in Germany. The documents selected here show that this was not accomplished without some ruthless business methods; production quality and ethical standards sometimes suffered, and piracy was a danger, as the legislation granting Sabellicus copyright of his History of Venice demonstrates [IX.10]. Profits could be huge: for example, Nicholas of Frankfurt was all set to double his investment from the sale of his working-partner’s Bibles [IX.9]. On the other hand, a partnership - claiming to represent the highest standards - which tried to break into Greek printing [IX.11] just after the government had granted Aldus Manutius a monopoly of the printing of Greek texts (25 February 1496) subsequently lost a lawsuit and had to move out of Venice. The partnership of Aldus (a non-Venetian) and Andrea Toresani, set up in 1495, is the best-known early printing-operation in Venice. Greek texts represented only a part of the partners’ extraordinary output [IX.13], which earned them a pre-eminent position for twenty years. But Venice was a centre not only for the printing of books and pamphlets: it also led Italy in the expert production of woodcuts and engravings, both as book illustrations and as independent works. One of the most ambitious prints, the enormous View of Venice by Jacopo de’Barbari, was the subject of a petition for exclusive rights of sale by its German sponsor [IX.12]. Likewise, Venice excelled in the printing of music: this is shown by the letter a Venetian composer wrote to his patron, a prominent republican exile from Florence, hoping to get his liturgical settings printed for high profit. [IX.14] BIBLIOGRAPHY: In general: Arnaldi and Stocchi 1981-3, III. On the earliest printers: Fulin 1882; Scholderer 1966. Only early copyright, Chavasse 1986. On the Aldine press: Pastorello 1965; Orlandi 1976; Lowry 1979. On the View of Venice by Jacopo de’Barbari: Schulz 1970, 1978. On mid-sixteenth-century printing: Grendler 1977. 9. A CONTRACT BETWEEN TWO GERMANS TO PRINT BIBLES, 1478 From the Latin. Fulin 1882, pp.100-1. 974
Master Leonard us [Wild, of Ratisbon otherwise Regensburg],(1) son of Ser Gerard ... printer of the parish of San Benedetto in Venice, on the one hand, and the excellent Lord Nicholaus,(2) son of the Lord Henry of Frankfurt, a German, on the other, came each of his own will and accord to the following agreement, contract, investment and transaction, and do solemnly undertake the same on their own part and on that of their heirs and successors. In the first place, the above-mentioned Lord Nicholaus for his part has promised to give and to pay to the said Master Leonardus, for his labour and for the printing of the aforesaid books,(3) the sum of 243 gold ducats and all the paper needed to print them. Of the 930 books, the aforesaid Lord Nicholaus should have just 910; the others, up to the said total, should be for Master Leonard us. The said Lord Nicholaus is required and obliged to disburse and pay these funds to the said Master Leonardus in the following manner: as often as the said Master Leonardus has delivered and consigned to the said Lord Nicholaus one complete gathering of all the copies, then the said Lord Nicholaus is bound to pay 5 ducats, and so he must continue to pay 5 ducats for each successive gathering until the full sum of 243 ducats has been paid. There must be no exceptions. The said Lord Nicholaus is also obliged to give the same Master Leonardus paper for the printing of the books, at Lord Nicholaus's expense, and at the good pleasure of Master Leonard us. Furthermore, should there be any pages in the printed copies which have not been clearly printed and stamped and arc not to the liking of the said Lord Nicholaus, in that case the aforesaid Master Leonardus is obliged to reprint them at his expense though with Lord Nicholaus supplying the paper as above. This is the agreement which they have solemnly negotiated and reached. 14 March 1478. 1. Leonard us printed thirteen editions between 14 78 and 1481, but evidently needed capital to meet his outlay on paper and wages. 2. This German merchant (the title 'Lord' seems merely formal), attached to the Fondaco, had already invested in printing in 1473. By 1481 he is recorded publishing and selling on his own. 3. That is, Bibles. This printed text of the Bible, sold for I ducat in the 1 480s, has been identified (Hain 1826-38, n. 3067). 10. COPYRIGHT LEGISLATION TO PROTECT SAilELLICUS’S HISTORY OF VENICE, 1486 From the Latin. ASV Collegio, Notatorio, reg. 13, ff. i i8v, 145r.
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1 September 1486 The history of our city, written by the very learned Marcus Antonius Sabellicus from Rome,(1) deserves for its eloquence and historical veracity to come into full public view. Therefore we, the undersigned noble Councillors, have debated and decreed that the aforementioned work by the aforenamed Marcus Antonius can be entrusted to some expert printer to print, at his own expense, and to publish the said work in such a manner as befits a polished history worthy of immortality; furthermore, we shall not permit anyone other than him to have the said work printed, under penalty of the displeasure of the most serene Signoria and [a fine] of 500 ducats, either in Venice or in any other city or region of the most serene Signoria. (Councillors) Ser Lucas Navagero; Ser Fantinus de Cha de Pcsaro; Ser Zacharius Barbaro, knight; Ser Scbastianus Baduario, lmig¡ht; Ser Bcncclictus Trcvisano. 18 May 1487 We, the undersigned noble Councillors, representing a majority of the most illustrious Signoria, for the purpose of removing any possible dispute, real or imagined, about the decree passed on the first clay of September last, have confirmed that the work written by the very learned .Marcus Antonius Sabellicus from Rome may be printed by a leading printer and that we shall not permit anyone other than him to have it printed etc. as in that decree; furthermore we have also decreed that no one except Marcus Antonius himself may authorize the aforesaid work to be printed either in Latin or the vernacular, either now or in the future; nor, even if the said work was printed in other regions, including those not subject to the aforementioned Venetian Signoria, may it be sold by anyone. However, it shall be permissible to sell those copies which the aforenamed Marcus Antonius has authorized to be printed; this also is subject to the abovementioncd penalty imposed by the decree of 1 September. (Councillors) Ser Nicolaus Mocenigo; Ser Franciscus Marcello; Ser Joannes Mauro; Ser Hieronymus Contarcno. 1. See above, IX.2.
11. TWO PARTNERS PETITION FOR COPYRIGHT TO PRINT CLASSICAL GREEK AUTHORS, 1497 From the Latin. Fulin 1882, p. 131. The ruinous ignorance and neglect of printers is corrupting books more and more every day, to the public disadvantage and the shame of this most glorious city. For this reason your most truly faithful subject Gabriel of Brasichella [sic for ? Brisighella] and his partners, being most cager to do what is best for the general good, honour and repu976
tation of our most splendid Republic, have determined to begin printing in Greek and Latin in this illustrious town, using their new and most beautiful technique with the highest care and precision. The aforementioned Gabriel and his partners have spent a great deal of money in this admirable and most useful enterprise,(1) and, because the debt is heavier than their own resources can bear, they hope to receive some sign of Your Most Merciful Serenity's kind favour. Furthermore, there may be many who, through hatred or jealousy, will use any means to injure the said company or crush it entirely. For these reasons the above-named Gabriel and his partners, being most faithful subjects of this truly glorious State, throw themselves with all possible reverence and humility at the feet of Your Serenity, beseeching you to show your usual kindness and mercy by granting them the special favour of a monopoly allowing no other person to use their new technique in the lands and territories of Your Most Illustrious Highness for the next ten years, nor to sell the following four Greek works - The Letters of Brutus and Phalaris, Pollux, Philostratus [Imagines], and the Fables of Aesop - on pain of forfeiting all copies and paying a fine of 1 ducat per volume. In this way your said most faithful subjects will be able to free themselves from the great debts which they have incurred in bringing their scheme, which is of such paramount use to all, to its perfect form. They would also gain some advantage from their labour and experiment, and would not be ruined for having¡ made the attempt. That would certainly be against the will of Your Serenity, to whose favour they most humbly commend themselves. 7 March 1497 1.  Gabriel had begun printing in Greek with the editorial help of the Cretan Zacharias Callierges and investment from a banker called Vlastos, the source of the debt here mentioned.
12. JACOPO DE'BARBARI'S PANORAMIC VIEW OF VENICE: PETITION FOR COPYRIGHT, 1500 ASV, Collegio, Notatorio, reg. 15, f. 28r (Cicogna 1824-52, IV, 647, with minor errors). To the Most Serene Prince and excellent Signoria. Antonio Cholb, German merchant, supplicates Your Sublimity that, because it is he who three years ago had [to ensure that] that work, principally [redounding] to the fame of this most excellent city of Venice, was accurately and properly drawn and printed, and because many details from it arc copied in other works, and because of the almost unattainable and incredible skill required to make such an accurate drawing both on account of its size and [ the size] of the paper, the like of which was never made before, and also because of the new art of printing a form of such large dimensions and the difficulty of the overall composition, which matters people have not appreciated, considering the mental subtlety involved, and given that printed copies cannot be produced [economically] to sell for less than about 3 florins each, so that he 977
docs not in general hope to recoup the moneys invested: he therefore supplicates Your Sublimity that grace may be conceded for the said work to be exported and sold in all your lands and cities without payment of any duties and without any restriction. (30 October 1500. Copyright granted for four years, but exemption from duty was not granted.) 13. BUSINESS RECORDS OF ALDUS MANUTIUS AND ANDREA DI ASOLA, 1500-1. Extracts from the accounts of the trust (commissaria) of the Procurator Pietro Barbarigo (Pastorello 1965, pp. 189-90). 8 January 1500 Ser Andrea de Toresani of Asola deposited in the company's account with the bank of Ser Mafio Agostini(1) one half of the 62 ducats collected from a German for books, the sum of 31 ducats. 7 March 1501 Tadeo Contarini credits the account of Messers Aldo Romano and Andrea of Asola at the bank of Mafio Agostini and his brothers with the sum of 30 ducats collected from Ser Jordan of Dinslaken, now deposited in the said bank. 20 April 1501 Paid into the said bank for printed books, to the credit of the company of Messers Aldo Romano and Andrea of Asola, the sum of 152 ducats collected from Messer Tadeo Contarini. 25 May 1501 Ser Piero Benzoni,(2) bookseller on the bridge of the Merceria, pays into the company's account with the said bank the sum of 4½ ducats for copies of the Cornucopia sold by him. 20 November 1501 Ser Jordan of Dinslaken,(3) German, pays the company 40 ducats for 101 copies of Cornucopia.(4) He takes delivery of them in two batches, the first immediately, the second in a few clays. 1. This banking-establishment, one of the largest in Venice, had invested in printing since 1473. 373 2. Manager of a bookshop for the French printer Nicholas Jenson during the 1470s.
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3. Jordan's father was probably Gaspar von Dinslaken, who had been a member of John of Cologne's company in the 1470s. Jordan was still trading in the 1520s. 4. A large and popular grammatical work compiled by NiccoliJ Perrotti, Bishop of Siponto (d. 21 1480). 14. THE PRINTING OF MUSIC: A COMPOSER IN SEARCH OF AN AGENT, 1536 Letter of Costanzo Festa to Filippo di Filippo Strozzi: ASF Carte Strozziane, serie V, 1209.I.84 (printed and translated in Agee 1985, pp. 232-4: some variations below). Magnificent Sir, comrade:(1) For the present I am sending the madrigal that you bid me f sct to music]. If it is not as worthy as it might be, pardon me because, in truth, I feel quite bothered by gout, although if it docs not please Your Lordship, let me know so that I may do it in a different way. I would like a service of Your Lordship that would make me most grateful: that one of your agents search in Venice for someone who prints music (although I have been asked I do not know the name). Have him f thc printer] understand that, if he wants my works - that is, the hymns rand] the Magnificats - that I do not want less than 150 scudi, and, if he wants the basse, 200 in all. If he wants to print them, he can place the hymns and Magnificats in a large book [i.e. a choirbook] like that of the Fifteen Masses,(2) so that all choirs would be able to make use of them. The basse are good for learning to sing¡, to [write] counterpoint, to compose, and to play all instruments. Hence, [I would be pleased if] Your Lordship docs me this favour. And to your good health I recommend myself, from Rome, 5 September 1536. Your servant and comrade, Costantio Festa. 1. Costanzo Festa (c. 1490-1545), composer and singer, is writing to the Florentine patrician Filippo di Filippo Strozzi (1488-1538), who was then in Venice; Filippo and his family were prominent connoisseurs of music, able to acquire new and unpublished music through widespread business contacts. 2. A reference to the Liber ... quindecium missarum (Rome 1516) of Andrea Antico (before 1480 - after 1539) who had moved to Venice c.1518-20.
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SECTION 2
Eisenstein, The Unacknowledged Revolution In the late fifteenth century, the reproduction of written materials began to move from the copyist's desk to the printer's workshop. This shift, which revolutionized all forms of learning, was particularly important for historical scholarship. Ever since then, historians have been indebted to Gutenberg's invention; print enters their work from start to finish, from consulting card-files to reading page-proofs. Because historians are usually eager to investigate major changes and this change transformed the conditions of their own craft, one would expect the shift to attract some attention from the profession as a whole. Yet any historiographical survey will show the contrary to be true. It is symbolic that Clio has retained her handwritten scroll. So little has been made of the move into new workshops, that after five hundred years, the muse of history still remains outside. 'History bears witness to the cataclysmic effect on society of inventions of new media for the transmission of information among persons. The development of writing and later the development of printing are examples ... '1 Insofar as flesh-and-blood historians who turn out articles and books actually bear witness to what happened in the past, the effect on society of the development of printing, far from appearing cataclysmic, is remarkably inconspicuous. Many studies of developments during the last five centuries say nothing about it at all. Those who do touch on the topic usually agree that the use of the invention had far-reaching effects. Francis Bacon's aphorism suggesting that it changed 'the appearance and state of the whole world' is cited repeatedly and with approbation. But although many scholars concur with Bacon's opinion, very few have tried to follow his advice and 'take note of the force, effect, and consequences' of Gutenberg's invention. Much attention is paid to developments that paved the way for this invention. Many efforts have been made to define just what Gutenberg did 'invent,' to describe how movable type was first utilized and how the use of the new presses spread. But almost no studies are devoted to the consequences that ensued once printers had begun to ply their new trades throughout Europe. Explicit theories as to what these consequences were have not yet been proposed, let alone tested or contested. There is, to be sure, a large and ever growing literature devoted to the history of printing and related topics. 2 Although much of it seems to be written by and for specialists - custodians of rare books and other librarians; experts on typography or bibliography, literary scholars concerned with press-variants, and the like - this literature 980
does contain material of more wide-ranging interest. Historians working in neighboring fields - such as economic history, comparative literature, or Renaissance studies -have also contributed useful treatments of special aspects. The field of social history has probably yielded the richest harvest. There one finds a bewildering abundance of studies on topics such as investment in early presses and the book trade in various regions; labor conditions and social agitation among journeymen typographers; scholarprinter dynasties and publication policies; censorship, privileges, and regulation of the trade; special aspects of pamphleteering, propaganda and journalism; professional authors, patrons and publics; the sociology of reading and the sociology of literature. The list could be extended indefinitely.3 Furthermore, several works that synthesize and summarize parts of this large literature have recently appeared. Thus Rudolf Hirsch surveys problems associated with 'printing, selling, reading,' during the first century after Gutenberg, for the benefit of' the general reader of social and intellectual history' as well as for the specialist.4 A more extensive, well-organized volume by Febvre and Martin, which skillfully covers the first three centuries of printing, has appeared in the Evolution de L' Humanite series. An even broader coverage, embracing 'five hundred years,' is provided by Steinberg's remarkably succinct semi-popular English survey.5 All three of these books summarize data drawn from many scattered studies. But although the broader historical implications of these data are occasionally hinted at, they are never really spelled out. Like the section on printing in the New Cambridge Modern History6 the contents of these surveys rarely enter into treatments of other aspects of the evolution of humanity. According to Steinberg: 'The history of printing is an integral part of the general history of civilization.'7 Unfortunately the statement is not applicable to written history as it stands although it is probably true enough of the actual course of human affairs. Far from being integrated into other works, studies dealing with the history of printing are isolated and artificially sealed off from the rest of historical literature. In theory, these studies center on a topic that impinges on many other fields. In fact, they are seldom consulted by scholars who work in any other field, perhaps because their relevance to other fields is still not clear. 'The exact nature of the impact which the invention and spread of printing had on Western civilization remains subject to interpretation even today.'8 This seems to understate the case. There are few interpretations even of an inexact or approximate nature upon which scholars may draw when pursuing other inquiries. 9 The effects produced by printing have aroused little controversy, not because views on the topic coincide, but because almost none have been set forth in an explicit and systematic form. Indeed those who seem to agree that momentous changes were entailed always seem to stop short of telling us just what they were. 981
The following two citations may suffice to illustrate the range of evasive tactics that arc employed. The first comes from a justly celebrated study of comparative literature by an eminent literary historian: 'The immense and revolutionary change which it (the invention of printing] brought about can be summarized in one sentence: Until that time every book was a manuscript.'10 The author goes on to discuss scribal book production, in a somewhat fanciful and romantic vein.11 Nothing more is said about what happened after books ceased being manuscripts and perhaps this explains how Curtius can assert: 'we have modernized our railroads but not our system of transmitting tradition.'12 In my view, the transmission of literary traditions was 'modernized' several centuries before the steam engine appeared; but this cannot be seen unless one takes a longer look at the 'immense and revolutionary change,' than Curtius docs. That an otherwise careful scholar entertains the notion of summarizing such a change in a single sentence is surely remarkable. A less exceptional approach is provided by the author of the second citation, who has contributed much to the special literature on printing and whose competence in this field gives his views added weight. 'It would require an extensive volume to set forth even in outline the far-reaching effects of this invention in every field of human enterprise.'13 This is probably so. Yet no volume, whether slim or extensive, can set forth or present in outline form, effects that have not yet been described or explicitly defined. Douglas McMurtrie's reference to an immense unwritten volume turns out to be scarcely more satisfying than Ernst Curtius' summary sentence. In both instances we learn nothing more about seemingly momentous consequences save that they occurred. Nor is the curious reader offered any guidance as to where one might go to learn more. Since we are concerned with 'far-reaching effects' that, by common consent, left no field of human enterprise untouched, one might well wonder why such effects still remain undetermined. 'Neither political, constitutional, ecclesiastical, and economic events, nor sociological, philosophical, and literary movements can be fully understood without taking into account the influence the printing press has exerted upon thern.'14 All these events and movements have been subjected to close ¡ scrutiny by generations of scholars with the aim of understanding them more fully. If the printing press exerted some influence upon them, why is this influence so often unnoted, so rarely even hinted at, let alone discussed? The question is worth posing if only to suggest that the effects produced by printing are by no means self-evident. Insofar as they may be encountered by scholars exploring different fields, they are apt to pass unrecognized at present. To track them down and set them forth - in an outline or some other form - is much easier said than done. When McMurtrie or Steinberg refer to the impact of printing on every field of human enterprise -political, economic, philosophical and so forth - it is by no means clear 982
just what they have in mind. In part at least they seem to be pointing to indirect consequences which have to be inferred and which are associated with the consumption of printed products or with changed mental habits. Such consequences are, of course, of major historical significance and impinge on most forms of human enterprise. Nevertheless it is difficult to describe them precisely or even to determine exactly what they are. It is one thing to describe how methods of book production changed after the midfifteenth century or to estimate rates of increased output. It is another thing to decide how access to a greater abundance or variety of written records affected ways of learning, thinking, and perceiving among literate elites. Similarly, it is one thing to show that standardization was a consequence of printing. It is another to decide how laws, languages, or mental constructs were affected by more uniform texts. Even at present, despite all the data being obtained from living responsive subjects; despite all the efforts being made by public opinion analysts, pollsters or behavioral scientists; we still know very little about how access to printed materials affects human behavior. 15 (A glance at recent controversies on the desirability of censoring pornography shows how ignorant we are.) Historians who have to reach out beyond the grave to reconstruct past forms of consciousness are especially disadvantaged in dealing with such issues. Theories about unevenly phased changes affecting literacy rates, learning processes, attitudes and expectations, do not lend themselves, at all events, to simple, clear-cut formulations that can be easily tested or integrated into conventional historical narratives. Problems posed by some of the more important effects produced by the shift from script to print, by indirect consequences that have to be inferred and by imponderables that defy accurate measurement, probably can never be overcome entirely. But such problems could be confronted more squarely if other impediments did not lie in the way. Among the far-reaching effects that need to be noted are many that still affect present observations and that operate with particularly great force upon every professional scholar. Thus constant access to printed materials is a prerequisite for the practice of the historian's own craft. It is difficult to observe processes that enter so intimately into our own observations. In order to assess changes ushered in by printing, for example, we need to survey the conditions that prevailed before its advent. Yet the conditions of scribal culture can only be observed through a veil of print. Even a cursory acquaintance with the findings of anthropologists or casual observations of pre-school age children may help to remind us of the gulf that exists between oral and literate cultures. Several studies, accordingly, have illuminated the difference between mentalities shaped by reliance on the spoken as opposed to the written word. 16 The gulf that separates our experience from that of literate elites who relied exclusively on hand-copied texts is much more difficult to fathom. There is nothing analogous in our experience or in that of any living creature within the Western world at pre983
sent. The conditions of scribal culture thus have to be artificially reconstructed by recourse to history books and reference guides. Yet for the most part, these works are more likely to conceal than to reveal the object of such a search. Scribal themes are carried forward, post-print trends are traced backward in a manner that makes it difficult to envisage the existence of a distinctive literary culture based on hand-copying. 17 There is not even an agreed-upon term in common use which designates the system of written communications that prevailed before print. 18 Schoolchildren who are asked to trace early overseas voyages on identical outline maps are likely to become absent-minded about the fact that there were no uniform world maps in the era when the voyages were made. A similar absent-mindedness on a more sophisticated level is encouraged by increasingly refined techniques for collating manuscripts and producing authoritative editions of them. Each successive edition tells us more than was previously known about how a given manuscript was composed and copied. By the same token, each makes it more difficult to envisage how a given manuscript appeared to a scribal scholar who had only one hand-copied version to consult and no certain guidance as to its place or date of composition, its title or author. Historians are trained to discriminate between manuscript sources and printed texts; but they are not trained to think with equal care about how manuscripts appeared when this sort of discrimination was inconceivable 19 - when everything was off the record, so to speak, save that which was read to those who were within earshot. Similarly, the more thoroughly we are trained to master the events and dates contained in modern history books, the less likely we arc to appreciate the difficulties confronting scribal scholars who had access to assorted written records, but lacked uniform chronologies, maps and all the other reference guides which are now in common use. Efforts to reconstruct the circumstances that preceded printing thus lead to a scholarly predicament. Reconstruction requires recourse to printed materials, thereby blurring clear perception of the conditions that prevailed before these materials were available. Even when the predicament is partly resolved by sensitive scholars who manage to develop a genuine 'feel' for the times after handling countless documents, 20 efforts at reconstruction are still bound to be frustratingly incomplete. For the very texture of scribal culture was so fluctuating, uneven and multiform that few long-range trends can be traced. Conditions that prevailed near the bookshops of ancient Rome, in the Alexandrian library, or in certain medieval monasteries and university towns, made it possible for literate elites to develop a relatively sophisticated 'bookish' culture.21 Yet all library collections were subject to contraction, and all texts in manuscript were liable to get corrupted after being copied over the course of time. Outside certain transitory special centers, moreover, the texture of scribal culture was so thin that heavy reliance was placed on oral transmission even by literate elites. Inso984
far as dictation governed copying in scriptoria and literary compositions were 'published' by being read aloud, even 'book' learning was governed by reliance on the spoken word - producing a hybrid half-oral, half-literate culture that has no precise counterpart today. Just what publication meant before printing or just how messages got transmitted in the age of scribes are questions that cannot be answered in general. 22 Findings are bound to vary enormously depending on date and place. Contradictory verdicts are especially likely to proliferate with regard to the last century before printing -an interval when paper had become available and the literate man was more likely to become his own scribe. Specialists in the field of incunabula, who arc confronted by ragged evidence, arc likely to insist that a similar lack of uniformity characterizes procedures used by early printers. To generalize about early printing is undoubtedly hazardous and one should be on guard against projecting the output of modern standard editions too far back into the past.23 Yet one must also be on guard against blurring a major difference between the last century of scribal culture and the first century after Gutenberg. Early print culture is sufficiently uniform to permit us to measure its diversity. We can estimate output, arrive at averages, trace trends. For example, we have rough estimates of the total output of all printed materials during the age of incunabula. Similarly, we can say that the 'average' early edition ranged between two hundred and one thousand copies. There are no comparable figures for the last fifty years of scribal culture. Indeed we have no figures at all. What is the 'average edition' turned out between 1400 and 1450? The question verges on nonsense. The term 'edition' comes close to being an anachronism when applied to copies of a manuscript book.24 Some of the difficulties of trying to estimate scribal output are illustrated in the following chapter. As examples given there will show, quantification is not suited to the conditions of scribal culture. The production figures which are most often cited, on the basis of the memoirs of a Florentine manuscript book-dealer, turn out to be entirely untrustworthy.25 Quattrocento Florence, in any case, is scarcely typical of other Italian centers (such as Bologna), let alone of regions beyond the Alps. But then no region is typical. There is no 'typical' book-dealer, scribe or even manuscript.26 Even if we set aside problems presented by secular book producers and markets as hopelessly complex and consider only the needs of churchmen on the eve of printing, we are still faced by a remarkable diversity of procedures. Book provisions for diverse monastic orders varied¡ mendicant friars had different ' arrangements from monks. Popes and cardinals often turned to the 'multifarious activities' of the Italian cartolai; preachers made their own anthologies of sermons; semi-lay orders attempted to provide primers and catechisms for everyman.
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The absence of an average output or a typical procedure poses a stumbling-block when we try to set the stage for the advent of print. An earlier version of this chapter, for example, asserted that book production moved from scriptoria to printers' workshops in the late fifteenth century. The assertion was criticized by a medievalist scholar on the grounds that book production had already left the monasteries in the course of the twelfth century, when lay stationers began to handle book provisions for university faculties and the mendicant orders. With the so-called 'book revolution' of the twelfth century and university supervision of copying, there came a 'putting-out' system. Copyists were no longer assembled in a single room, but worked on different portions of a given text, receiving payment from the stationer for each piece (the so-called 'pecia' system). Book production, according to my critic, had thus moved out of scriptoria three centuries before the advent of print. The objection seems worth further thought. Certainly one ought to pay attention to the rise of the lay stationer in university towns and other urban centers during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.27 The contrast between the free labor of monks working for remission of sins and the wage labor of lay copyists is an important one. Recent research has stressed the use of a putting-out system and has also called into question long-lived assumptions about the existence of lay scriptoria attached to stationers' shops. 28 Thus one must be especially cautious about using the term. scriptoria to apply to conditions in the later middle ages -more cautious than I was in my preliminary version. Yet on the other hand one must also be wary about placing too much emphasis on trends launched in twelfth-century Paris, Oxford, Bologna and other university towns where copies were multiplied rapidly to serve special institutional needs. Caution is needed when extending university regulations on the system of the 'pecia' to the actual practices of university stationers - let alone to bookdealers serving non-university clientele.29 That relatively clear thirteenth-century patterns get smudged by the late fourteenth century must also be kept in mind. It is a mistake to imply that the 'pecia' once introduced, continued down to the advent of printing. Available evidence suggests that it declined a full century before the first presses appeared.30 During the interval between 1350 and 1450 -the crucial century when setting our stage -conditions were unusually anarchic and some presumably obsolete habits were revived. Monastic scriptoria, for example, were beginning to experience their 'last golden age'.31 The so-called 'book revolution' of the twelfth century had not entirely extinguished the tradition of copying as part of the opus dei. It was energetically revived in the Netherlands by the orders founded by Gerhard Groote. 'No religious community had ever concentrated its energies on book production as Groote's brethren did.'32 This revival was not confined to regions where the devotio modema flourished. Elsewhere the tradi986
tion of Cassiodorus was also given a new lease on life. The early fifteenth-century treatise by Jean Gerson In Praise of Scribes was written in reply to queries from Carthusians and Celestines about permission to copy books on feast days.33 The existence of monastic scriptoria right down to and even beyond the days of early printing is most intriguingly demonstrated by that anomalous treatise which owed much to Gerson and is often cited as a curiosity in books on early printing: Johannes Trithemius' De Laude Scriptorum. This is the treatise where the Abbot of Sponheim not only exhorted his monks to copy books but enriched an ancient topos by explaining why 'monks should not stop copying because of the invention of printing.'34 Among other arguments (the usefulness of keeping idle hands busy, encouraging diligence, devotion, knowledge of scripture, etc.) Trithemius somewhat illogically compared the written word on parchment which would last one thousand years with the printed word on paper which would have a shorter life-span. The possible use of paper (and scraped parchment) by copyists, or of skin for a special printed version went unmentioned. As a hebraist, a Christian scholar and a reader of Gerson, the Abbot was clearly familiar with the topos which had first set durable parchment against perishable papyrus.JS His arguments show his concern about preserving a form of manual labor which seemed especially suitable for monks. Whether he was genuinely worried about an increased use of paper - as an ardent bibliophile and in the light of ancient warnings - is an open question. But his activities show clearly that as an author he did not favor handwork over presswork. He had his Praise of Scribes promptly printed, as he did his weightier works.36 Indeed he used one Mainz print shop so frequently that 'it could almost be called the Sponheim Abbey Press.'37 Even before the Abbot of Sponheim made his trip from scriptorium to print shop, the Carthusian monks of Saint Barbara's Charterhouse in Cologne were turning to local printers to extend their efforts, as a cloistered order bound by vows of silence, to preach 'with their hands. '38 As many accounts note, the same thing happened outsidt Cologne and not just among the Carthusians.39 A variety of reformed Benedictine orders also kept local printers busy and, in some cases, monks and nuns ran monastic presses themselves. The possible significance of this intrusion of a capitalist enterprise into consecrated space belongs to other sections of this book.40 Monastic copying and presswork have been mentioned here merely to suggest what might be missed if the rise of the lay stationer in the twelfth century is overplayed. To rule out the formula 'scriptorium to printshop' completely seems almost as unwise as to attempt to apply it in a blanket form. As these comments may suggest, it is easier to generalize about the new system of book production than about the old, especially when considering the interval 13501450. Uniformity and synchronization have become so common since the advent of 987
printing, that we have to remind ourselves repeatedly that they were usually absent in the age of scribes. When one has been trained to view phenomena at a distance, however, one is prdne to myopia about those that occur, so to speak, directly under one's eyes. The apparent blindness of most scholars to effects exerted by the medium they look at every day has been most emphatically stressed and elaborately treated by Marshall McLuhan.41 According to his thesis, subliminal effects are engendered by repeatedly scanning lines of print presented in a standardized format. Habitual book readers are so subjectively conditioned by these effects that they are incapable of recognizing them. The bizarre typographical format of The Gutenberg Galaxy is presumably designed to counteract this conditioning and to jolt the reader out of accustomed mental ruts. McLuhan attributes his own awareness of and ability to withstand the quasihypnotic power of print to the advent of new audio-visual and electronic media. By affecting our senses and conditioning our perception differently, he holds, the new media have begun to break the bookish spell that held literate members of Wes tern society in thrall during the past five centuries. It is noteworthy that the author, while presenting his thesis in an unconventional format, tends to undermine it at the same time by drawing heavily for substantiation on conventional scholarly literature even while reiterating conventional nineteenthcentury literary themes. The chaotic format of The Gutenberg Galaxy probably owes less to the impact of new media than to the old-fashioned difficulty of trying to organize material gleaned from wide-ranging reading -evaded in this instance by an oldfashioned tactic, by resorting to scissors and paste. When its author argues that typography has become obsolescent and that an 'electric age' has outmoded the 'technology of literacy' he is himself (in my view, at least) failing to take full note of what is under his own eyes and that of the reader he addresses. Elaborate media-analysis docs not seem to be required to explain current myopia about the impact of print. Since Gutenberg's day printed materials have become exceedingly common. They ceased to be newsworthy more than a century ago and have attracted ever less attention the more ubiquitous they have become. But although calendars, maps, time-tables, dictionaries, catalogues, textbooks and newspapers are taken for granted at present (or even dismissed as old-fashioned by purveyors of novelties) they continue to exert as great an influence on daily life as ever they did before.42 Indeed the more abundant they have become, the more frequently they are used, the more profound and widespread their impact. Typography is thus still indispensable to the transmission of the most sophisticated technological skills. It underlies the present knowledge explosion and much of modern art. In my view, at least, it accounts for much that is singled out as peculiarly characteristic of mid-twentieth century culture.43 But, I repeat, the more printed materials accumulate, the more we are inclined to over988
look them in favor of more recent, less familiar media. Articles speculating about the effects of television will thus find a larger market than conjectures about the impact of print. Because the latter has become increasingly less visible, repercussions that are actually being augmented and amplified at present arc paradoxically believed to be diminishing instead. The prolonged ubiquity of printed materials, however, does not completely explain current myopia. The era of incunabula had ended well before Bacon, Campanella, Galileo or Kepler were born. But none of them was inclined to take typography for granted; on the contrary, each commented on its great significance. To be sure, by present standards, printed materials were relatively scarce in the early seventeenth century. Nevertheless, by contemporary standards they were remarkably abundant and were already being described as a glut on the market; 'begotten only to distract and abuse the weaker judgements of scholars and to maintain the Trade and Mystery of Typographers' according to Sir Thomas Browne.44 Since the scanning of printed pages had become a familiar daily routine in seventeenth-century scholarly circles and yet letterpress was still being discussed as a conspicuous innovation, our present tendency to overlook it needs further explanation. Some additional points are worth considering. In the seventeenth century, many scholars and intellectuals were on much closer terms with print shops and typographers than they have been since the industrialization of printing led to new divisions of labor. Down through the Age of Enlightenment, genteel publishers and mechanic printers had not yet come to a parting of the ways. An early seventeenth-century virtuoso, such as Kepler, who spent hours in print shops himself, closely supervising scientific presswork, was likely to be more alert to print technology than arc contemporary astronomers, who send off their findings to the editors of journals and assume publication will be forthcoming, after receiving a favorable verdict from referees. How this growing distance from printing plants has affected the attitudes of men of knowledge remains to be assessed.45 Has it helped, perhaps, to reinforce a disdain for technology and applied science on the part of those who are engaged in 'pure' research? In addition to the industrialization of printing trades and new division of intellectual labor, problems of censorship and ideology also need to be brought into the picture. In the early-modern era, gaining access to publication outlets often entailed circumventing censors and engaging in illicit activities. A man of letters who had to smuggle out a manuscript for publication by a foreign press or locate a clandestine press in his native land was less likely to take the services of printers for granted than are most men of letters (in Western Europe, at least) today. This was especially true of Campanella, Galileo and Kepler, as it was of the later philosophes who lived under Catholic rule. Tributes to the power of the press were more compatible with patriotic themes in 989
Protestant realms; emphasis on the epoch-making functions performed by printing had anti-papist and anti-Roman overtones. The theme was thus developed by anti-Italian German humanists, amplified by Lutherans and other Protestants, carried on by Huguenots, Puritans, freethinkers and Enlightenment philosophes, reaching a final climax in the writings of Whig historians, such as Macaulay, and anti-clerical ones, such as Michelet.46 Thereafter, however, the apostles of progress were diverted from gunpowder and printing, first to the steam engine and then to the dynamo. By the late nineteenth century, the hand press itself was becoming something of a museum piece - a point that also helps to explain why it seems less conspicuous to us than to Francis Bacon or Condorcet. The cumulative impact of recent technological advance thus has also helped to relegate the fifteenth-century invention to the position of an antique; of more interest to rare book dealers than to observers of the modern scene. It is symptomatic that incunabula have joined hand-produced books as highly valued scarce objects to be placed in glass cases and cherished as vestiges of a distant, lost past.47 Given the recent rapid pace of innovation, moreover, the Renaissance convention of coupling printing with other post-classical inventions has also helped to diminish the attention focused upon it. The more rapidly new inventions proliferate, the less conspicuous earlier ones tend to become. The expansion of the so-called modern knowledge industry has produced similar results, with modern scholars uncovering old inventions almost as rapidly as modern technology has brought forth new ones.48 As just one more item in an increasingly cluttered inventory, the printing press has also become less distinctive. In this respect we have come around almost a full circle since the press was first tacked on to a long list of post-classical novelties. This list had been drawn up before Gutenberg, by a Papal librarian who mentioned some twenty-two items (including the stirrup, the mechanical clock, the compass, and gunpowder) to illustrate a possible reason for using non-Latin words. 49 In the course of the sixteenth century this concern over a philological departure from pure Latinity was transmuted into a celebration of technological advance. The written word was powerfully reinforced by graphic presentation. 'Nova Reperta,' an often reproduced series of copper-plate engravings celebrating 'modern' inventions and discoveries, designed by Vasari' s pupil 'Stradanus' (Jan van der Straet) in the 1580s ( engraved and published repeatedly by the Antwerp firm of Galleus) probably did as much as any written treatise to fix the theme in its present familiar form. 50 After interest had shifted from the study of words to the invention of things, items were reordered and assigned varying degrees of importance. 51 Printing, gunpowder and the compass were singled out for special prominence on many different lists. 52 By the time Francis Bacon wrote about the need to take note of' the force, effect and consequences' of human inventions or discoveries, he could assume that the 990
'most conspicuous' numbered only three. 53 No such assumption can be made at present. Although headline writers manage to discriminate among unprecedented events, by varying the scale of their captions, twentieth-century historians seem to have lost the knack. 54 Once again, our lists of innovations have become cluttered and confused. In view of the oddly assorted company Gutenberg's invention keeps at present (I have found it placed between the insurance contract and advances in metallurgy in one account; between the mechanical clock and the university in another; between doubleentry bookkeeping and spectacles in a third)55 one wonders, indeed, where to look for it. Docs it belong where we arc most accustomed to finding it, in the context of late medieval technology? In many ways it does seem appropriate to couple letterpress printing with other instruments of power and precision, and to place it in a sequence which includes developments in metallurgy and textiles and experiments in oil-based pigments and ink. 56 But if one is in the company of librarians and bibliophiles it will seem equally appropriate to place it in quite a different sequence associated with the history of the book. There it will be viewed as just one more stage of a long process which goes back at least to the slave labor of antiquity and to the shift from roll to codex. 57 Not late medieval metallurgy but the twelfth-century book revolution will be taken as the most significant point of departure. As we have seen, this context favors a gradual, evolutionary view. Once manuscript book-publishing has been organized on a new basis and paper production developed to handle an expanding trade, little room is left for innovation by the printer and his new machines. Yet another different context is supplied by the economic historian. The latter is much more likely than the librarian to place the stationer's successor in an innovative role. Accordingly, the early printer is viewed as an urban entrepreneur who substituted machine-made products for hand-produced ones, who had to recoup large investments and secure financial aid; who pioneered in early mass production and extended trade networks beyond the limits of late medieval guilds and towns; who experienced labor problems, including early strikes, and who confronted constant competition from profit-driving rival firms. For the economic historian, then, the first printers belong in the company of other early capitalists rather than with the manuscript bookdealers of an earlier age. 58 To portray early printers as early capitalists enables one to regard them as innovators. But it also places them uncomfortably close to the company of philistines and invites other misleading inferences associated with the behavior of economic man. It means losing sight of many other roles that were performed in connection with the arts and sciences or with the learning and letters of the day. 'Printing was a mechanical art' writes Edgar Zilsel, 'and the publishers, though themselves classical scholars, were not 991
literary dispensers of glory but business men.' 59 It seems more accurate to describe many publishers as being both businessmen and literary dispensers of glory. They served men of letters not only by providing traditional forms of patronage but also by acting as press agents and as cultural impresarios of a new kind. 'To make illustrious this author's name and to benefit the world' Tartaglia's Venetian publisher thus described his motives in printing a posthumous translation of Euclid by the self-made artisan-engineer. Doubtless, he hoped to make money as well as win for Tartaglia a measure of fame. The point is that the profit motive was combined with other motives that were self-serving and altruistic, and even evangelistic, at times. The printer could take satisfaction in serving humanity at large even while enhancing the reputation of authors and making money for himself. This distinctive mixture of motives entered into the rapid expansion of early printing industries. A variety of interests were served and not merely those represented by economic man. As pioneers in new manufacturing and marketing techniques, early printers shared something in common with other urban entrepreneurs; but as pioneers in advertising and publicity, in ¡agitation and propaganda, in lexicography and bibliography they must be placed in a class by themselves. Their shops were different from those run by earlier manuscript book-dealers and lay stationers, because they contained new machines and mechanics trained to operate them. At the same time, the new workshops also differed from those run by other contemporary manufacturers because they served as gathering places for scholars, artists, and literati; as sanctuaries for foreign translators, emigres and refugees; as institutions of advanced learning, and as focal points for every kind of cultural and intellectual interchange. As these remarks may suggest, the establishment of print shops in urban centers throughout Europe rather resembles another topic described by Frances Yates as being everybody's business and thus nobody's business.60 Diverse aspects of the multi-faceted topic are handled by diverse specialists engaged in tracing different sequences and sharing few common concerns. Although problems relating to book production and distribution come under the aegis of economic and social historians; those relating to consumption are more likely to be handled by literary scholars or media analysts. Although the history of the book is normally allocated to courses in library studies; the topic of printing itself is assigned to historians of technology while type design, layout and lettering arc treated as part of a subspecialty taught in schools of design. Given a topic that is segmented, subdivided and parcelled out in this fashion, it is little wonder that one rarely gets a sense of its significance as a whole. Even the wide-ranging studies produced by social historians have failed to provide a full-length, well-rounded study of the new occupational culture represented by the early printer or a full assessment of his many roles. 61 992
Thus a steady division of intellectual labor (perhaps an inevitable concomitant of the expanding knowledge industry) has also diminished the number of those who might be interested in following Bacon's advice. If printing often receives a somewhat cursory treatment in large volumes devoted to the history of the book, of Western technology or of early capitalism, it gets even shorter shrift elsewhere. Countless standard histories of Western philosophy, religion, and science, of political and economic theory, of historiography, literature or the fine arts pass over the topic entirely. Not only modern specialization, but also the persistence of a venerable philosophical tradition of proud ignorance concerning material and mechanical phenomena, may help to account for neglect by intellectual and cultural historians. Because of this neglect the history of ideas is weakened as a discipline. When ideas are detached from the media used to transmit them, they are also cut off from the historical circumstances that shape them, and it becomes difficult to perceive the changing context within which they must be viewed. This point is not only pertinent to most histories of Western philosophy or literature; it also applies to most treatments of the history of science and of historiography. 62 The shift from script to print affected methods of record-keeping and the flow of information. We cannot, each of us, study all aspects of the past, and intellectual historians may be well advised to leave many inventions, such as stirrup or grist mill, to other specialists. To treat Gutenberg's invention in this way, however, is to miss the chance of understanding the main forces that have shaped the modern mind. The problem of relating intellectual history to the rest of history could also be handled more effectively if greater attention were paid to the impact of print. Attempts to relate ideas to social action, to link the Marxist 'superstructure' to actual modes of production, or to develop a 'sociology of knowledge' arc likely to produce strained and awkward solutions when the communications revolution is not taken into account. Most speculation about mind and society or mentalities and material conditions seems premature and excessively abstract. Before theorizing in general about these issues, should we not consider more concretely how specific forms of book learning may be related to specific techniques for producing and distributing books? The printing press, of course, is not merely classified topically as a special kind of innovation and assigned to bibliographers, historians of technology, and other specialists in neighboring fields. It is also classified chronologically and thus falls within the general area cultivated by historians who specialize in fifteenth-century studies. As a period-piece, it usually appears on time-charts coupled with the Fall of Constantinople and gets mentioned under the appropriate chapter-heading in general surveys and textbooks. Placed somewhere between the Black Death and the Discovery of America in the minds of attentive students, it occupies a relatively inconspicuous position among 993
all the events that arc passed in review when thousands of years are surveyed. Most professional historians, specializing in various periods, arc even less apt to pause over the advent of printing than those who read introductory surveys. It is likely to escape the attention of most ancient historians and of many medievalists. Nor does it attract much more notice from scholars who specialize in the periods that post-date its advent. Discussion of the historical significance and broader social consequences of the shift from script to print is generally left to those who specialize in the problematic era (or is it a cultural movement?) known as the 'Renaissance.' 63 The field of Renaissance studies is not well designed to accommodate the consequences of printing, however. Its chronological limits are too narrow, and its usual concentration on Italy too intense to do justice to the topic. In the early sixteenth century, praise of Gutenberg's inventive genius came from Germans trying to counter prior claims to cultural supremacy made by Italian literati. Insofar as these prior claims have been reasserted by Renaissance scholars, they are more likely to stress the advent of early humanism than the later establishment of the new press. Furthermore the output of early presses drew on a backlog of scribal work; the first century of printing produced a bookish culture that was not very different from that produced by scribes. The more closely one observes the age of incunabula the less likely one is to be impressed by changes wrought by print. To see how a process of cultural transmission was transformed by the shift, one must take a more wide-angled, long-range view than is common among specialists in the Renaissance. Scholars engaged in tracing a sequence which unfolds in a single region from the trecento to the cinquecento have no good reason to make much of the difference between printer and scribe. On the contrary, they are likely to be impressed by the unity and continuity of the cultural movement Petrarch launched. In their scheme of things, Gutenberg's invention may have helped to propel existing trends (by popularizing humanist bookhands, for example) but its advent should not be taken as a cultural demarcation point. It appeared too late for that -well after the first-born sons of modern Europe had already started to ring down the curtain on the medieval scene. Ever since Burckhardt, this view has become conventional in a way that dissident scholars have been powerless to change. New course catalogues and textbook chapters reinforce it every year. Although some early philosophers of history, such as Condorcet, regarded printing as an epoch-making event and arranged epochal divisions accordingly, most periodization schemes at present place printing in a kind of limbo - so that it comes somewhere in the middle of an ill-defined age of transition. Its consequences receive less attention than the characteristics of the hypothetical era in which it is placed. In more general works, earlier chapters frequently postpone discussion of Gutenberg's invention until the Renaissance has ended. The shift from script to print is 994
never discussed; the age of incunabula is permitted to close as inconspicuously as it opened and the subject is relegated to miscellaneous aspects of the Reformation. 64 When the innovation is placed, more accurately, in the fifteenth century, it is usually mentioned in an off-hand and casual manner and treated as an incidental example of some other concurrent development - if not as an instance of early capitalist enterprise, then to illustrate the expansion of a literate laity or to demonstrate late medieval technological advances or to discuss diffusionist theories and Western importation of Far Eastern techniques. 65 It is indicative that Fernand Brandel, one of the most distinguished living historians of early-modern Europe, has relegated printing to a subordinate position between artillery and ocean navigation. No longer does it lead the trio that Bacon singled out for having changed the state of the world. Instead it 'shared equally between the retrograde and progressive thought of Europe,' 'accelerated currents the hand written book created' and bore 'responsibility for the slow development of mathematics ... ' In Brandel's view, 'only ocean navigation ended by creating any upheaval or asymmetry in the world' ;66 a fundamental misapprehension - as I hope readers of this book will see. Nevertheless, George Sarton has described movable type as 'the greatest invention of the Renaissance' and, in a symposium devoted to the era, tried, however briefly, to spell out some of its consequences. 67 So, too, has Myron Gilmore, who devotes several paragraphs to the topic in his volume in 'the rise of modern Europe' series. When we consider the treatments of specialists in the periods that postdate the age of incunabula, a Renaissance scholar such as Gilmore will appear to be farsighted indeed. The invention and development of printing with movable type brought about the most radical transformation in the conditions of intellectual life in the history of western civilization. It opened new horizons in education and in the communication of ideas. Its effects were sooner or later felt in every department of human activity.68 Although he thus points toward later repercussions, the chronological limits of Gilmore's volume prevent his describing them in any detail. Subsequent volumes in the series that might be expected to describe somewhat more fully effects that were eventually 'felt in every department of human activity' contain no explicit reference to these effects at all. This tendency to curtail discussion of a continuing transformation at the very point, in the early sixteenth century, when it was just beginning to gather momentum is unfortunately typical. Studies devoted to the centuries that followed the era of incunabula relegate consideration of printing to a variety of fringe areas and minor subspecialties. Separate marginal plots within the large, somewhat amorphous, field of social history are cultivated by authors of monographs devoted to the book-trade, to patronage 995
and censorship, to belles lettres, journalism, and education, to public opinion and propaganda analysis or to the internal organization of printing industries in diverse regions. Save for occasional references to the 'rise' of the 'reading public' and the emergence of 'professional' authors in the eighteenth century, to the role of the 'press' and of' public opinion' in the nineteenth century, one might conclude from the vast bulk of current history books, that the social and intellectual transformations introduced by printing had petered out with the last Reformation broadside. That the new presses disseminated Protestant views is, probably, the only aspect of the impact of printing which is familiar to most historians of modern Europe. In accounts of the Reformation as in accounts of other movements, the effects produced by printing tend to be drastically curtailed and restricted to the single function of 'spreading' ideas. That new issues were posed for churchmen when the scriptural tradition 'went to press', and. that print contributed to dividing Christendom before spreading Protestantism are possibilities that have gone unexplored.69 At all events, once chapters devoted to the Reformation are closed and the spread of Protestantism has been achieved, the activities of printers and publishers seem to become less newsworthy. The spotlight of history is focused on later, seemingly more significant developments. Among historians dealing with the post-Reformation era, the invisibility of the cumulative impact exerted by the new communications system is particularly marked. The intellectual and political revolutions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are placed in the context not of a post-print but of a pre-industrialized society. In setting the stage for the rise of modern science, for example, the state of communications in seventeenth-century Europe is often discussed. One is told about the rise of postal systems, the building of canals and other improvements in transport. But the previous replacement of hand-copied tables, charts and maps by printed ones, is likely to be left out of account. The significance of a growing handwritten correspondence among virtuosi is frequently underlined; the more novel appearance of 'open letters' addressed to scattered observers tends to be ignored. The distribution of scientific talent is often examined; the distribution of scientific publication outlets is seldom explored.70 The same point may be made about efforts to set the stage for Enlightenment thought or for the political revolutions of early-modern times.71 In attempting to explain these revolutions, shifts associated with trade routes and prices, land use and crops, status groups and classes, are discussed at length. Changes which affected duplication of maps, charts and tables, of law books and reference works, calendars and treaties, bills and petitions are noted infrequently, if at all. The rise of the middle class and the role of the bourgeoisie is always related to the growth of a money economy; yet the rise of men of letters and the role of the intelligentsia is rarely related to the expanding
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powers of the press. We hear much about the effects of the commercial revolution but nothing about those of the communications revolution.72 Like the fast growing bibliography on the history of technology, a long-lived, ever thickening literature on the 'industrial revolution' has also helped to distract attention from the invention Bacon once regarded as conspicuous. In general works, for example, more emphasis will be placed on shifts affecting textile production and the cloth trade than on those affecting book production and the book-trade. The two areas are related, to be sure. Not only did textile printing precede book-printing but textiles also entered into rag paper production and thus helped to pave the way for the use of the press. Nevertheless letterpress printing had a more direct effect on the flow of information than did either textile mills or paper mills. The flow of information, a review article tells us, is an important and neglected area of institutional innovation which economic historians ignore at their peril, especially if they are concerned with commercial expansion and theories of economic growth. 73 The article stops short of suggesting any possible effects produced by printing on the interchange of economic information. The relationship, if any, between expanding printing industries and the growth of capitalist enterprise during the earlymodern era still remains to be explored. Most surveys of economic history move from the later middle ages to early-modern times without giving any indication of how the advent of printing might have affected commerce and industry in general or methods of advertising, insurance schemes, stock market reports and systems of currency in particular. In any attempt to cover the last two centuries, there are too many changes affecting agriculture, industry, and transportation to be noted for later phases of the continuing revolution - the advent of new paper mills and the use of iron and steam for presswork - to receive more than cursory notice. Even the earliest phases are now overshadowed by the cluster of changes that came three centuries later; so that the advent of printing instead of being treated as an event that is sui generis and that should be examined on its own terms is made to serve merely as another precursor of later massproduction techniques. Coupled with sixteenth-century mining and shipbuilding, instead of the compass and gunpowder, it is relegated to the position of forerunner and made to anticipate later large-scale industrial enterprises. As one among numerous inventions, the' divine art' has become less illustrious. As a revolutionary process that helped to usher in early-modern times, the shift from script to print is overshadowed by later transformations and placed by periodization schemes into a closed chapter. Still, historians are presumably well equipped to open closed chapters. It is, after all, their main stock in trade. The contents of this particular chapter are, however, curiously difficult to decipher. For when we stay in the brief interval allotted to typography in most texts and surveys and try to focus the spotlight more nar997
rowly on its advent, we find that the more closely we look, the less certain we become about what it is that we are to examine. The enigmatic phrase 'movable metal type' appears, like the grin of the vanished Cheshire cat, to be all that is left of the first of Bacon's most conspicuous inventions. Not only have lists grown longer and boundaries between specialties more formidable; our analyses of 'inventions and discoveries' have also become increasingly sophisticated in a way that tends to muffle our sense of their force and effectiveness. We are more aware than were Bacon and his contemporaries that major innovations do not spring to life abruptly and full blown, like Minerva from Jove's brow. They are now regarded less as single events than as complex social processes, representing in turn the end-products of other vaster social changes. 74 To account for the utilization of movable type, it is no longer sufficient merely to go to Gutenberg's workshop in Mainz -or even to argue that one should first go to Caster's in Haarlem, or possibly also to examine the business operations of Johannes Fust and Peter Schoeffer. Instead one must investigate the prior expansion of a literate laity and a manuscript book-trade, account for the accumulation of capital required for investment in early plants, or try to explain why printing industries expanded so rapidly in Western Europe during the late fifteenth century and why the invention of movable type did !lot have , similar consequences in the Far East: Furthermore, the first presses now appear merely as the end-products of many other innovations drawn from home and abroad. Changes affecting all manner of industries, arts, and crafts - ranging from wine-making, cheese-making, seal-cutting, oil-painting and card-playing, to metallurgy and textile production have to be taken into account. Together with the prior establishment of paper mills and the production of block-printed books, such innovations have been examined in sufficient detail to fragment our concept of 'printing' as an invention. 'It requires a long treatise to say what actually constituted Gutenberg's "invention."’75 Insofar as we are nonetheless apt to locate the 'printing press' on our time charts in the 1450s, it rests there as a convenient abstraction - as a summary statement of concrete particulars that must, for the most part, be located elsewhere. To describe the 'force and effect' of such an abstraction leads to difficulties. On the one hand, it seems to have changed nothing; on the other, it appears to have transformed everything. Almost all historians agree that no sharp line should be drawn dividing the first half of the fifteenth century from the second. All of them concur with the following judgment. 'It was not the production of books that was revolutionized by the use of moveable type or its application to the machine-made edition. In fact printed books were at first hardly distinguishable from manuscripts ... '76 Yet they are also apt to note how Gutenberg 'introduced into Europe, more than three centuries ahead of its general adoption by industry, the "theory of interchangeable parts " which is the basis 998
of all modern mass-manufacturing technique.' 77 Possibly a sharp line should be drawn severing the last part of the fifteenth century from preceding eras. By 1480, 'the basic difference between the effects created by the metal worker and those produced by the quill driver ... brought about the victory of the punch cutter over the scribe and with it the supersession of the imitation manuscript by the authentic book.'78 In the end, even sophisticated moderns fall back on ancient mythology: 'Again and again the historian is struck by the fact that ... various offshoots of Gutenberg's art sprang into existence full-grown and armed like Athena from Zeus' forehead.'79 As these passages suggest, it is difficult to deal with the advent of typography without skewing perspectives by resorting simultaneously to two incompatible models of change: one gradual and evolutionary; the other, abrupt and revolutionary. There are cogent arguments for regarding Gutenberg's invention as part of a continuously unfolding process; for presenting it (as Febvre and Martin do) as one clement in a larger 'ensemble' of transformations. Thus, the invention and utilization of movable type may be viewed as one by-product of previous developments, such as the spread of lay literacy, and as a factor, which, in turn, helped to pave the way for later developments, such as modern mass literacy. Printers and scribes copied each other's products for several decades and duplicated the same texts for the same markets during the age of incunabula. In the mind of the Italian humanists 'there was no distinct line of demarcation between the manuscript book and that printed by movable typc.'80 For at least fifty years after the shift there is no striking evidence of cultural change; one must wait until a full century after Gutenberg before the outlines of new world pictures begin to emerge into view. It seems plausible, in the light of such considerations, to favor a gradualist, evolutionary approach. But there are also compelling reasons for regarding the shift from script to print as a large 'ensemble' of changes in itself and for contrasting the talents that were mobilized and the functions that were performed by copyists and cartolai on the one hand and by early printers on the other. As various studies show, historical imagination is required to bridge the gap between the age of scribes and that of the printer. Br But before it can be bridged, the gap must be acknowledged, and this acknowledgement, in turn, implies acceptance of discontinuity. A persuasive case, then, can also be made out for regarding the age of incunabula ¡ as a major historical great divide and for viewing the advent of printing as inaugurating a new cultural era in the history of Western man. In current literature, there is much more reluctance to adopt the second line of approach than the first one. 82 Whenever possible, discontinuities are glossed over; significant distinctions between the two modes of production are not fully spelled out and various implications of the shift from one to the other are overlooked. At the same 999
time, however, the thesis of evolutionary gradualism is employed intermittently and inconsistently. Indeed, one must read between the lines to determine which model, if any, is being used. Interpretations are conveyed indirectly and obliquely. On those rare occasions when a relevant question is posed, an uncertain answer is obtained. The road from manuscript to print was continuous and broken and I venture to say that all great discoveries, all so-called new movements, harbor the same contrasting elements, continuity and radical change. This dichotomy accompanies Humanism, Renaissance, nationalism, capitalism, the Reformation and ... the splitting of atoms ... Jacob rightly called the xvth century a 'remarkable admixture of the old and the new ... ' His characterization fits the xvth-century book as well. Old elements remained unchanged, others were transformed, new techniques were developed and the uses of books changed.83 In many ways, the paradoxical model of a line which is both continuous and broken does seem to suit the odd nature of effects produced by a new process designed to duplicate old products. The difficulty of handling changes initially wrought by printing without shattering conventional 'linear' sequential patterns is certainly worth further thought. On the other hand, special problems presented by the shift are likely to be obscured by considering other assorted developments such as humanism, capitalism or atom-splitting. It is also disappointing to be told that all movements contain elements of continuity and radical change and that a given century is an admixture of old and of new. To be reminded of eternal verities is rarely helpful in dealing with specific historical problems. In the end, the passage simply deflects attention away from the wider implications of the problem and towards a more limited range of issues. The general reader recedes and the bibliophile comes to the fore; the impact of print on the fifteenth-century book rather than on European society is discussed in the paragraphs that follow the citation: Even when dealing with this narrower topic and bringing 'his special competence to bear on it, the author's approach is sufficiently ambiguous to leave open the question of how abrupt or gradual, major or minor, were the changes typography entailed. A similar ambiguity and uncertainty marks the more ambitious broad-gauged historical synthesis composed by Febvre and Martin. The very title of their volume: L' Apparition du Livre underlines a failure to come to grips with basic issues. Although the work is really devoted to l'apparition du livre imprime' (as Marcel Thomas tells us on the first page) the reference to print is omitted from the title. The uninformed reader is left in the dark as to when the advent of the book really occurred. The more knowledgeable scholar cannot help wondering why the advent of printing, rather than of the book, was not clearly presented as the subject under review. As it is, the theme of a major cultural metamorphosis is muffled by the authors' oblique approach. Lucien Feb1000
vre's preface stresses the larger ensemble of transformations within which Gutenberg's invention should be viewed and also presents the shift to print as a mere prologue to later and greater transformations. The first chapter is devoted to the prior advent of paper and to tracing an evolutionary pattern. It describes the gradual expansion of both manuscript book production and of a cosmopolitan lay reading public. Thereafter, the same pattern recurs, divisions between manuscripts and incunabula are blurred and the lack of important changes in book-production techniques during the next three centuries is stressed. 84 We are also told that the new presses, by duplicating outmoded scribal works more efficiently, did 'nothing to speed up the adoption of new theories or knowledge' and, on the contrary, contributed to cultural inertia. 8s In certain scattered passages, however, the typographical industry is 'very rapidly modernized'; 'medieval' workshops arc transformed into 'modern plants' as early as the 1480s; a 'bouleversement' of literate Europe is produced by the immensely increased output of books during the age of incunabula; the concern of sixteenth-century printers to attract the greatest number of buyers to their wares is described as a step toward 'mass culture'; in mid-sixteenth-century Lutheran regions a 'mass literature' 'directed at everyone and accessible to everyone' had already been achieved. 86 It is noteworthy that the scattered passages which hint at remarkably rapid modernization and 'bouleversement' are at odds with the general tenor of the work. Insofar as they tend to play down discontinuous and revolutionary implications and stress the themes of gradualism and continuity, Febvre and Martin appear to be conforming to deep-rooted historical conventions. 'Here as always,' wrote Carl Stephenson in a passage devoted to the printing press, 'the historian finds that his epoch-making event was not a sudden innovation, but a gradual transition.'87 Denys Hay seems to speak for the entire historical profession when - even while noting the exceptional character of the event - he warns against overdramatizing consequences. Some inventions ... have taken centuries to be widely adopted and even more have taken generations. Printing was an exception. It spread at a phenomenal speed from Mainz and by the 1490s each of the major states had one important publishing centre and some had several. .. It is impossible to exaggerate the rapidity of the transformation. It is all too easy to exaggerate the consequences ... 88 Given the tendency of uninformed laymen to overlook the development of manuscript book production; to underrate the extent of lay literacy before printing and overrate the rapidity of its spread thereafter, it is probably necessary to issue some kind of warning. But although some of Hay's readers may need to be cautioned in this way, most of his scholarly colleagues do not. They are, if anything, more likely to underestimate changes wrought by printing than to overestimate them.
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The dangers of exaggerating the significance of the initial shift have in any case already been sufficiently emphasized in current scholarly literature. It is the opposite danger - that of forcing an evolutionary model on a revolutionary situation - which now ought to arouse more concern. For specific illustration of this point, let me turn to a 1975 article in a library journal. 89 The author sets out to reaffirm an evolutionary thesis and to refute some of the views I presented in preliminary sketches for this book. He begins by warning against the temptation of projecting 'upon the fifteenth century and the Renaissance the influence which printing clearly had at the time of the Reformation.' He goes on to discuss the activities of a Bruges scribe-turned-printer, who seems to have used his press much as he did his pen in order to turn out the books which were desired by his noble Burgundian patrons. In no instance did Mansion's production of printed editions outnumber manuscript copies of the same work ... As it existed in Bruges, printing offered no guarantee of a larger audience. The largest editions of Mansion and his successors barely equaled the normal distribution of contemporary manuscript books. The usual Mansion printed edition was four or five copies, a modest figure in comparison to manuscript editions which numbered twenty or more. 90 Having demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the output of Colard Mansion, printer, was not significantly different in terms of quantity or quality from that of Colard Mansion, scribe, the author seems to feel that an evolutionary thesis has been proved. Yet merely because a given printer, who served noble patrons in Bruges, failed to exploit the duplicative powers of the new press is no reason to assume these powers went unused elsewhere in Europe. Let me set aside doubts about the validity of comparing manuscript 'editions' with printed ones or of designating an edition as 'usual'; a distribution as 'normal'; and take the estimates we are given at their face value. Four or five copies is indeed a 'modest' figure, not merely in comparison with multiple copies made of manuscripts but, much more strikingly, in comparison with estimates of the number of copies issued from pre-Reformation presses. 91 'As it existed at Bruges,' printing may have 'offered no guarantee of a large audience' but Bruges was not as important a printing center as were other towns at the same time. Like Colard Mansion himself, indeed, Bruges crops up in printing history chiefly because of associations with William Caxton. 92 Bruges had been a center of deluxe manuscript book production. Its relative insignificance as a continental book-production center after the advent of printing is worth noting. The establishment of presses in diverse regions did not leave book-trade patterns unaltered. Before 1500 new centers of production and exchange had appeared. In view of such considerations it seems incautious to conclude that preReformation printing left European book production virtually unchanged. 1002
By the early part of the sixteenth century, the number of large printed editions reproduced and distributed by the printing press clearly exceeded the capabilities of the scriptorium. By radically increasing the number of books and reducing their cost, printing had great social, economic and intellectual impact on European civilization at the time of the Reformation. However none of the factors which made printing important in the 1500s existed at the time of Colard Mansion when printing was an adjunct to the scriptorium and not its rival ... 93 According to a recent authority Mansion was ruined by the outlay required for his lavishly illustrated printed edition of Ovid so that he had to flee Bruges and his creditors in 1484 and 'is heard of no more.' 94 This suggests that Mansion failed to adapt his business to new requirements posed by printing and that his preference for deluxe small editions was not easily reconciled with operating a successful early press. The view that printing was an adjunct and not a rival to the hand-copying of books thus is not substantiated even by the one atypical case we are offered. Mansion's career, however atypical, may still serve as a reminder that Gutenberg's invention by itself is insufficient to account for the fifteenth-century communications revolution. His unusually small output points up the need to consider the myriad diverse factors which encouraged or discouraged the spread and full use of the new presses. But to say that 'none of the factors' which made printing important 'existed at the time of Colard Mansion' is to make a sweeping judgment which seems to fly in the face of available evidence. To blow up the obscure case of Mansion while ignoring the celebrated one of his one-time colleague, William Caxton, also seems perversely calculated to set historical perspectives askew. As this example may suggest, it is not necessarily prudent and may even be rash to insist on gradual and evolutionary change when dealing with the shift from script to print. Few authorities are as explicit about rejecting the revolutionary model as is the article discussed above. But all seem reluctant to employ it. When dealing with our topic scholars are more likely to err in the direction of understating the change than of overstating it. More often than not, as previous remarks suggest, they fall back on evasive tactics and play safe by not dealing with the topic at all. But here again, playing safe is not really a safe solution, for it invites unqualified judgments to pre-empt the field. Where historians are prone to be over-cautious, others are encouraged to be over-bold. Evasion on the part of careful scholars allows the topic to go by default into more careless hands. The fifteenth-century 'media revolution' is also of interest to those who cultivate various avant-garde fields (communications theory, media analysis and the like) and who scrutinize the current scene without paying much heed to the past.95 Non-historians of this sort, however, are almost certain to go astray if they try to thread their way unaided through five centuries of unevenly 1003
phased change. It is not surprising that they may become impatient with the absence of clear guidelines and decide to try shortcuts on their own. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, Marshall McLuhan provides a good case in point. The author has solved his difficulties by the simple (albeit inelegant) device of dispensing with chronological sequence and historical context altogether. Far from appearing to be concerned about preserving proportion and perspective, he impatiently brushes aside all such concerns as obsolete. Developments that have been unfolding over the course of five hundred years, affecting different regions and penetrating to different social strata at different intervals, arc randomly intermingled and treated as a single event -most appropriately described, perhaps, as a 'happening.' According to some critics and the author himself, the jumbling of data and disregard for sequence are deliberate. The Gutenberg Galaxy, we are told in the Times Literary Supplement, is an 'anti-book.' The author has set out to subvert 'traditional modes of philosophic-historical argument' and to persuade his readers 'that books -a linear progression of phonetic units reproduced by movable type - are no longer to be trusted,'96 It seems unlikely that readers of the Times Literary Supplement (or of The Gutenberg Galaxy for that matter) arc in much need of persuasion on this point. Few of them have ever put much trust in books per se; most of them are trained to approach all publications with caution and arc inclined toward disbelief when presented with arguments (whatever the format) that are not solidly substantiated. McLuhan's 'non-linear' presentation at all events has not inspired confidence in his arguments. The way he justifies his handling of the topic only increases the reader's sense of distrust. In addition to old mosaics and new media, he invokes the 'field theories' of modern physics. His special training, not in electromagnetic theory but in literature and philosophy, his close study not of Einstein but of James Joyce, seems to me to be more to the point. To be well versed in modern literary criticism is to be predisposed against chronological narrative regardless of other avant-garde trends. Indifference to mundane temporal sequence also has venerable religious antecedents. Catholic theology may well be more of an influence than twentieth-century physics on recent efforts at understanding media. 97 Paradoxically enough, The Gutenberg Galaxy also owes something to the work of the most influential school of historians in our time. Not only the general critique of conventional narrative history by the Annales school, but also Lucien Febvre's special thesis concerning the shift from 'the age of the ear' to 'the age of the eye' enters into McLuhan's interpretation.98 When the Annalistes reject a conventional narrative form or Febvre seeks to reconstitute the psychological experience of earlier generations, however, it is in order to enrich and deepen historical understanding. Whatever his purpose may be, this, clearly, is not McLuhan's aim.
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If indeed he did set out to subvert traditional modes of historical argument, he selected an unsuitable topic. Almost any other subject would provide a better target than the shift from script to print. Historical guidelines still fall short of encompassing this shift. They need to be extended rather than undermined. It is not really accurate to say that McLuhan has taken data out of context, for an adequate context has not yet been supplied. As noted earlier, I think the author has shirked the difficult task of organizing his material coherently. His insistence that coherence is itself outdated strikes me as unconvincing. The Gutenberg Galaxy performs a useful function, nevertheless, by pointing to a large number of significant issues that cry out for historical investigation and have, as yet, received almost none. Perhaps historians are too often discouraged in advance by being reminded repeatedly of the magnitude of the task: The cumulative effect of the continuing revolution wrought in every aspect of human thought and activity by the invention associated with the city of Mainz is too immense ever to be fully describable. Its consequences to religion, politics and industry are far too vast for assessment by available historians and bibliographers or by any assemblage of scholars to be foreseen at present. 99 The prospect of tackling a subject that is 'far too vast' to be assessed by any present or future assemblage is apt to daunt even the most audacious individual. If it is too vast to be handled by any single scholar, however, it is, by the same token, also too vast to be avoided by any single scholar. Given its almost limitless dimensions, the cumulative effect of the 'continuing revolution' is bound to impinge, one way or another, on all fields of inquiry, even highly specialized ones. Hence individual specialists, who arc careful and cautious about their work, must, sooner or later, come to terms with it. Consequences entailed by a major transformation have to be reckoned with, whether we acknowledge them or not. In one guise or another, they will enter into our accounts and can best be dealt with when they do not slip in unobserved. Enough warnings have already been issued. Historians scarcely need to be alerted again to the difficulties of following Bacon's advice. But the importance of trying to surmount these difficulties does need to be stressed. Although the task may never be completed, it should, at least, be begun. Notes 1. St John, book review, The American Journal of Sociology, p. 255. (For full citation of all footnote references, consult Bibliographical index at end of volume II.) 2. According to 'Nouvelles du Livre Ancien' (Fall, 1974) no. 1 (a tri-annual newsletter issued by the 'lnstitut de Recherche et d'Histoirc des Textes '), almost a thousand periodicals arc covered by the new Annual Bibliography of the History of the Printed Book and Libraries issued from the Hague since 1970. In the 1972 volume (which excludes all U.S. publications as well as those of several European countries) there are some 2,800 entries. The Selective Check Lists of Bibliographi1005
cal Scholarship issued at five-year intervals by the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia are especially helpful for keeping up with recent output. The Archiv fur Geschichte des Buchuvsens which first appeared in 1956 under West German auspices covers a wider, geographic and topical, area than the old Archiv fur Geschichte des Deutschen Buchuvsens and, along with two new journals launched since 1970 from Holland and France, enables one to sample the dazzling variety of research activities undertaken in the second half of this century. Like the Archiv, Quaerendo: A Quarterly Journal from the Low Countries Devoted to Manuscripts and Printed Books (Amsterdam) (a successor to Het Bock) and Revne Francaise d'Histoire du Livre (Bordeaux) (sponsored by the Societe Francaise d'Histoire du Livre) stress the broader cultural implications of the history of the book. A useful selective bibliography is in Derry and Poole, Annals of Printing, pp. 287-94, but note the caution given by Gaskell, A New Introduction to Bibliography, p. 392. For a basic introduction to topic, Gaskell should be consulted in any case. 3. The wide range of periodicals containing relevant material is suggestive. Apart from numerous journals specifically devoted to special aspects (such as The Library or the Gutenberg Jahrbuch), I have also found useful data in the Journal des Savants, the UCLA Law Review, Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, Archiv fur Reformiationsgeschichte, Isis, Shakespeare Studies, and other seemingly unrelated specialized journals. 4. Hirsch, Printing, Selling. In my view the specialist will profit more than the general reader from sampling the richly detailed findings contained in this work. For a second printing in 1974, the author has added a bibliographical introduction but has left intact the text. The latter provoked perhaps an unduly harsh critical review in the Times Literary Supplement (Sept. 21, 1967), p. 848. 5. Febvre and Martin, L' Apparition. (Febvre died before the book was completed and credit for most of it should go to Martin.) Martin's later master work: Livre, pouvoirs et societe a Paris au XVIIe siecle has been described as a 'splendid sequel.' (Sec 'Books in France,' Times Literary Supplement (Nov. 20, 1969), p. 1344.) It is indeed a splendid work encompassing more than its title suggests. But two volumes on conditions in seventeenth-century France do not really serve as a' sequel' to one volume covering all of Europe during three centuries. As a synthesis, the one volume is, as yet, unsurpassed and, unlike the other surveys, contains a large classified bibliography. An English translation which has just been issued: The Coming of the Book, tr. David Gerard (London, 1976) unfortunately omits the bibliography, which is by now in need of updating. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years, covers a wider interval in fewer pages but lacks the richness and depth of the French volume. In dealing with the most recent centuries, Steinberg's work is especially thin. But in covering the first century after Gutenberg, he offers some data that is not duplicated in the other surveys despite their traversal of the same ground. 6. Hay, 'Literature: The printed book,' pp. 359-86. See n. 64 below. 7. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years, p. II. 8. Hirsch, Printing, Selling, p. 2. 9. The casual treatment given to the topic by most historians has often been underlined by students of library science, without much effect. See e.g. remarks by Uhlendorf, 'The Invention and Spread of Printing,' p. 179. 10. Curtius, European Literature, p. 238. 11. Compare Curtius' remarks about the diligent, loving, sedulous scribe (p. 328) with Ivins' 'sloppy, clumsy, inelegant, hastily and carelessly written manuscript' as reported by Buhler, The Fifteenth Century Book, p. 87. Curtius says that 'every book produced by copying' was 'a personal achievement,' overlooking all the evidence that shows piecemeal copying was common - at least as far back as the ninth century. See Destrez, La Pecia, pp. 21; 44. The misleading impression of
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manuscript books conveyed by the beautiful specimens preserved in library treasure rooms is underlined by Butler, Origin of Printing, p. II. 12. Curtius, European Literature, p. 16. 13. McMurtrie, The Book, p. 136. 14. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years, p. 11. 15. Berelson and Janowitz, Reader in Public Opinion contains several relevant articles. 16. For suggestive imaginative use of the distinction between oral and literate cultures to illuminate diverse phases of Greek thought, see Havelock, Preface to Plato. The same distinction is discussed from the viewpoint of anthropologists by Goody and Watt, 'The Consequences of Literacy,' 304-45. See also collection of essays, edited by Goody, Literacy in Traditional Societies for pertinent discussion and references. Despite passing reference to the work of McLuhan and Ong in Goody's introduction, the difference between scribal culture and print culture tends to be blurred by arguments which contrast alphabetic with ideographic writing and oral with written transmission but not script with print. For an earlier, somewhat neglected essay comparing oral with written transmission, sec Gandz, 'The Dawn of Literature.' As noted in my preface, recent interest in African studies has stimulated a new, large and mushrooming literature on this question. See bibliography given by Vansina. 17. For elaboration on this point, see my essay, 'Clio and Chronos.' 18. I have found the term 'scribal culture' useful as a shorthand way of referring to such activities as producing and duplicating books, transmitting messages; reporting news and storing data after the invention of writing and before that of movable type. 'Chirographic' is more correctly opposed to 'Typographic' by Father Ong but seems somewhat too recondite for my purposes. As noted in my preface, the term 'print culture' is used to refer only to post-Gutenberg developments in the West. How printing affected pre-Gutenberg Asia must be left to others to investigate. 19. The need to distinguish between the pre-Gutenberg manuscript and the post-print one has been recognized by specialists in the history of the book. For general discussion of the 'archeology' of the manuscript book, see Josscrand, 'Les Bibliothcqucs.' One scholar has suggested reserving the term 'codicology' for the study of the pre-print manuscript book and using the term 'manuscriptology' for the study of mss. after Gutenberg. Sec important article by Gruijs, 'Codicology or Arc)1cology of the Book?' where pertinent remarks of W. Hellinga at a Dutch Philological Congress in 1952 arc cited (p. 107, n. 4). The absent-mindedness of most modern book users about the nature of manuscript books handled by scholars before print is brought out by Goldschmidt, Medieval Texts, p. 9. 20. A remarkable imaginative reconstruction of the European mentality before print is offered by Febvre, Le probleme. See especially the sections devoted to the printing press and hearsay, pp. 418-87. For another example of sensitivity to the conditions of scribal culture, see Smalley, English Friars, pp. 9-10. A pioneering effort to describe how medieval literature was shaped by scribal procedures is Chaytor's From Script to Print. 21. I have not mentioned Moslem or Byzantine centers simply because they are off limits for this book. It is a truism that scribal culture flourished more vigorously in certain centers outside Latin Christendom than within it during much of the medieval millennium. 22. Although very old, the article by Root, 'Publication before Printing,' still provides the best introduction to this topic. Sec also Bennett, 'The Production and Dissemination of Vernacular Manuscripts.' 23. How operations performed by actual early printers differed from those imagined by bibliographers is vividly described by McKenzie, 'Printers of the Mind.' A warning against attributing modem standardization to early editions is offered by Black, 'The Printed Bible.' Sec also discussion in chap. 2, section 2 below. 1007
24. Here, as elsewhere, opinions vary. For references to an 'edition' of a thirteenth-century Paris Bible, see Branner: 'Manuscript Makers' and 'The Soissons Bible Paintshop.' 25. See reference to Albinia de la Marc's research on Vespasiano da Bisticci in n. 28 below. 26. For useful warning against the notion of a 'typical' manuscript book, see Delaisse, Le Manuscrit Autographe, I, 50. 27. For terse description of twelfth-century 'book revolution' sec Humphreys, The Book Provisions, p. 13. The system of the 'pecia' handled by university stationers in Oxford, Paris, Bologna who farmed out pieces of a given ms. for copying and were meant to have their mss. periodically checked against an exemplar by university officials is described in exhaustive detail by Destrez. 28. Compare categorical statement in Febvre and Martin, L'Apparitio11, pp. 18-19, concerning 'veritablcs ateliers de copistes' with penetrating critique by Delaisse questioning the existence of any such 'workshops' in his Art Bulletin review of Millard Meiss' work. The dispersal of the diverse individuals responsible for turning out manuscript Bibles in thirtcenthccntury France is also described by Branner: 'Manuscript Makers;' 'The Soissons Bible Paintshop.' The long lived notion that Vespasiano da Bisticci (the most celebrated Florentine bookdealer of the quattrocento) had an actual scriptorium attached to his shop is not sustained by the intensive research of de la Marc, 'Vespasiano' and 'Messer Picro Strozzi, A Florentine Scribe.' She says that Vespasiano farmed out manuscripts for copying to notaries like Strozzi who did the work in their spare time. There are no records showing that he ever kept any group of copyists regularly employed on any task. For further comment on Vespasiano and de la Marc's findings sec chap. 2, notes 6, 13, 14 below. On the other hand, I have not seen anyone challenge the 'secular scriptorium' in early fourteenth-century London which was uncovered by Loomis, 'The Auchinlcck Manuscript,' or John Shirley's 'publishing firm,' as noted by Raymond Irwin, introduction, The English, Library Before 1700, p. 5. The oft-cited 'book factory' run by Diebold Lauber in Hagenau (Alsace), and other similar lay scriptoria in Strassburg and Stuttgart arc noted by Lehmann-Haupt, 'The Heritage of the Manuscript,' and Peter Schoeffer, pp. 64-5. For discussion and references offering a conventional (now outmoded? view) sec Harrington, 'The Production and Distribution of Books.' Chapter 5 is devoted to 'public commercial scriptoria' from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. Evidence that Paris college chambers were used as scriptoria even in the late middle ages is given by Willard, 'The Manuscripts of Jean Petit's justification.' For the purpose of rapid simultaneous copying, the advantages of gathering many copyists to receive dictation in one room seem so obvious, it is difficult to envisage a complete abandonment of the scriptorium at any point during the centuries of handproduced books. 29. Although authorities often assume that the 'pecia' actually performed as university statutes intended it to -that it arrested corruption and encouraged the production of uniform texts (sec e.g. Fcbvrc and Martin, L' Apparitio11, pp. 10--11; Hirsch, Printing, Selling, p. xi) - a careful reading of Destrez, La Pecia shows the contrary was often the case (sec discussion of pecia corrupta or falsa, pp. 70--1; also passages on pp. 35; 40-1). The numerous categories of manuscript books that were not subject to this system although carefully noted by Destrez (pp. 20, 43) arc also often overlooked in more general accounts. 30. Destrez, p. 25, notes that the system of the 'pecia' declined by the time paper came into common use, for reasons that arc unclear. Its relatively short-lived existence is underlined by Hajnal, L'Enseignement, p. 238. In Oxford it existed from the 1230s until the mid-fourteenth century according to Pollard, 'The University and the Book Trade.' 31. Klaus Arnold, introduction to Johannes Trithemius' In Praise of Scribes-De Laude Scriptorum, p. 14. 32. Southern, Western Society, p. 350. 33. Gerson, 'De Laude.' 1008
34. Trithemius Praise of Scribes (ed. Arnold), chap. 7, p. 63. Versions of this advice arc cited by several authorities: Clapp, 'The Story of Permanent Durable Book Paper,' n, 108; Buhler, Fifteenth Century Book, p. 35; Fussner, The Historical Revolution, p. 8 (who cites a relevant passage from Ivy, 'Bibliography of the Manuscript Book.') 35. Trithemius' dependence on Gerson for other sections is noted by Arnold, introduction, p. 20. Febvre and Martin, L'Apparition, p. 31, note how Gerson advised durable parchment rather than perishable paper (given the date, nothing is said about presswork as against handwork, of course). One of Saint Jerome's fourth-century epistles describes the damage done to papyrus (paper) volumes in the great library of Pamphilus at Cacsarca and how they were replaced by more durable vellum ones. There are also injunctions in the Talmud about writing on skin rather than paper. (Sec Kenyon, Books and Readers, pp. 44-5; II5.) 36. On Trithemius' contacts with Basel printers, German humanist circles and his significant roles as bibliographer, chronicler, cryptographer and necromancer, see pp. 94-7 below. 37. Arnold, introduction, p. 15, notes chat Trithemius closely supervised the presswork of Peter von Friedberg at Mainz and that thirteen of the twenty-five editions this printer produced during the decade 1490-1500 were works by Trithemius (1494-8); another six were by the Abbot's friends. 38. Collaboration between the Carthusian monk, Werner Rolevinck and the Cologne printer, Arnold Therhoernen in the 1470s is discussed by the former in his preface to his Sermo de Presentacione Beale Virginis Marie (Cologne, 14 70) and is now being investigated by Richard B. Marks. Marks is following up his recent monograph: The Medic11al Manuscript Library with a series of articles on the late mss. and early printed versions produced by the Cologne Carthusians and has kindly supplied me with advance copies of his papers -upon which I have drawn. For further references to the theme of' preaching with one's hands' (which goes back at least to Cassiodorus), see pp. 316-17, 373-4 below. 39. According to Hirsch, Printing, Selling, p. 54, at least seven monastic presses were established in German areas by the 1470s. Kristcllcr, 'The Contribution of Religious Orders to Thought and Learning,' p. 99, n. 13 offers references to early monastic presses in Italy and England (p. 99 discusses the Convent of San Jacopo of Ripoli as one of the chief early presses in Florence). Febvre, Au Cerur Religieux, p. 3311 notes the setting up of presses by French monks in Chartres. Febvre and Martin, L' Apparition, p. 264, mention several French abbeys in Burgundy. The adoption of printing by the Brethren of the Common Life in the Netherlands and the large output of the Deventer press, which had an uncertain affiliation with Groote's order is covered by Sheppard, 'Printing at Deventer.' The intellectual influence of the Brethren in general and their involvement in Deventer in particular has been overstated, according to Post, The Modem Devotion, pp. 8-10; 5513. The transition from scriptorium to press in Zwolle is well documented in the Narratio de Inchoatione Domus Clericorum in Zwollis, ed. M. Schoengen (1908), cited by Southern, Western Society and the Church, p. 349. 40. See reference to Hellinga article, chap. 2, n. 55, and discussion of Luther's attitudes and the Weber thesis, chap. 4, sect. 5 below. 41. McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy. The same theme is elaborated in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. For further comment on McLuhan, see below pp. 40-1. 42. The extent to which 'ours is a typographical culture' and the accompanying tendency to take the functions wrought by printing too much for granted is brought out clearly by Butler, Origins of Printing, pp. 2-4. 43. As noted in Eisenstein, 'Clio and Chronos,' p. 63, present nihilistic and chaotic aesthetic trends owe more to the preservative powers of print than is often realized. See also the concluding chapter of volume ii of this book.
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44. Religio Medici (1643), sect. 24 in The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne, p. 32. Sec also citation from Lope de Vega in Preserved Smith, A History of Modem Culture 11, 276. Although Smith implies that it was only in the seventeenth century that the multiplication of books began to be felt as an oppression, Erasmus had already complained about the swarms of new books. See 'Festina Lente,' The 'Adages' of Erasmus, pp. 182-3. This complaint probably owed something to ancient scribal literary conventions. Both Petrarch and Juvenal had, after all, complained about the number of scribblers at work in their day. 45. See discussion of Mannheim's views p. 154, below. 46. On Condorcet's influential scheme and its use by Michelet, sec chap. 3, n. 420 below; Protestant historiography is discussed on pp. 304-5 below. The recently published Memoires de Louis Philippe I, 4 start with describing the invention of printing as perhaps 'the most decisive event in the history of man' and assign it a prime role in destroying feudalism. 47. The present 'museum-culture' veneration of manuscripts and incunabula is in marked contrast to the careless approach of earlier eras. The fact that sixteenth-century men often discarded manuscripts 'like old newspapers' once a printed edition had been made (sec Destrez, La Pecia, p. 18) or that seventeenth-century Oxford librarians sold off Shakespeare's first folio as superfluous after the third had appeared (Buhler, Fifteenth Century Book, p. 101, n. 44) is sometimes taken to indicate a benighted contempt for manuscripts that came with printing. Sec e.g. Allen, The Age of Erasmus, pp. 159-60. But even before Gutenberg, some humanist book-hunters showed singularly little interest in preserving the manuscript from which they copied a given text. See Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, p. 116. On the other hand, as an editor working for Sweynheim and Pannartz, de Bussi complained of niggardly collectors withholding their loan of manuscripts to the firm he served because 'they esteemed the art of printing to be a depreciation of their property.' Botfield, Pracfationes, pp. vi-vii. Franklin, 'Conjectures on Rarity,' suggests that the ethos of the 'rare book room' first appears in the seventeenth century. 48. Publications by the Society of the History of Technology during the past decade suggest the problem of squeezing Gutenberg's invention onto crowded inventories. References to printing arc infrequent in the articles, reviews, and cumulative bibliographies published in Technology and Culture. 49. On Giovanni Tortelli's list, see Keller, 'A Renaissance Humanist.' Composed in 1449, 'De Orthographia' was first printed in 1471 in both Rome (by Gallus and Nicholaus) and in Venice. It ran through thirteen incunablc editions. 50. Keller, 'Mathematical Technologies,' pp. 22-3. An interesting view of the Antwerp firm of engravers who produced 'Nova Reperta' is offered by Bataillon, 'Philippe Galic ct Arias Montano.' The role of engraver-publisher and of the caption writer (Cornilis Kiliaan or A. C. Kilianus Duffbcus) - both of whom were affiliated with Plantin's circle in Antwerp points to a collaborative effort. The series is too often credited to Stradanus alone. 51. Both Sarton, Six Wings, pp. 248-9, n. 35, and White, Medieval Technology, p. 135, n. 1, note how the title page of Nova Reperta series places printing, compass, and gunpowder in the company of the stirrup, the mechanical clock, the discovery of America, silk, distilling and a purported cure for syphilis. This seems fairly cluttered, yet it reduces the number of items inherited from Tortelli, whose list had been augmented earlier, not only by printing but also by other lesser items, such as the long hose and berets in Polydore Vergil's De Inventoribus Rerum (Venice, 1499). The title page of 'Nova Reperta' also discriminates by means of scale and position between the press and the cannon (which arc large and central), the discovery of America and the magnetic compass (large and flanking the centerpieces) and other lesser objects which are smaller and scattered somewhat randomly on the ground. (T am grateful to Alice McGinty, whose dissertation on
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Stradanus was recently completed at Boston University, for providing me with a look at the full series and guiding me to literature on this subject.) 52. In addition to Keller's articles, cited above, useful background on the coupling of gunpowder and compass with printing is offered by Wolper, 'The Rhetoric of Gunpowder'; and Kinser, 'Ideas of Temporal Change.' 53. Sec Aphorism 129, Novum Organum - an excerpt is cited as an epigraph for chap. 2. Among other sixteenth-century comments, those of Bude and Rabelais (1532), Jean Fernel (1542), du Bellay (1549), Cardano (1551), Jean Bodin (1556), Frobisher (1578), Louis Le Roy (1557), Guillaume Postel (1560) contributed to making printing conspicuous by Bacon's time. For an Englishman like Bacon, Protestant propagandists, such as John Bale and John Foxe ought to be added to any such list. 54. How perspectives are skewed by a recent proliferation of epoch-making events, strategic inventions, ages of crisis and decisive breaks with the past is discussed in my essay, 'Clio and Chronos,' pp. 38-9. 55. Lopez, 'Hard Times and Investment in Culture,' p. 33; Mumford, Technics and Civilization, pp. 134-7; Durand, The Vienna-Klosterneuberg Map Corpus, p. 282. 56. See Clapham, 'Printing.' 57. For English language studies of classical book production, libraries and book-trade, sec Kenyon, Books and Readers; Reichmann, 'The Book Trade at the Time of the Roman Empire'; Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scl1olarsl1ip. By comparison, Putnam's Autliors and Their Public is not worth consulting. Putnam's survey of medieval Books and Their Makers, is oldfashioncd anecdotal and rambling but contains some useful data (albeit in a disorganized state). Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars is intended to explain problems of transmission to 'beginners in the field of classical studies' but also serves as a most useful succinct introduction to medieval scribal culture. ln addition to McMurtrie, two books by Diringer: The Hand Produced Book and The Illuminatcd Book also offer a useful general introduction. Book provisions in medieval English monasteries arc covered by Knowles, The Religious Orders in England 11, 331-51. For examples of the smooth transition from the late medieval manuscript book-trade to the early printed book-trade, sec Lehmann-Haupt, 'Heritage of the Manuscript' and Harrington's dissertation. 58. For discussion of far-flung markets and pioneering publicity developed by expanding firms during the first half century of printing, sec Ehrman, 'The Fifteenth Century.' The use of printers' account books to illustrate facets of early capitalism is exemplified by Edler de Roover's articles, 'Cost Accounting in the Sixteenth Century;' 'New Facets on the Financing and Marketing of Early Printed Books,' and by F. Geidner, 'Das Rechnungsbuch des Speyrer ... Grossbuchhandlers Peter Drach.' 59. Zilsel, 'The Origins of Gilbert's Scientific Method,' p. 24. 60. Yates, The Art of Memory, p. 374. 61. Of his or her many roles. That daughters and widows of printers often took over the family enterprise is noted by Lenkey and others. See references in chap. 2, n. 136 below. 62. See part 3, volume II below for attempts to suggest how the so-called 'external' advent of printing may be related to the so-called 'internal' history of science. Issues pertaining to historiography arc touched on at various points in chap. 3 and in my essay, 'Clio and Chrones,' but full coverage would require another book. 63. The usefulness of restricting the term to a cultural movement and distinguishing 'movements' from 'periods' is brought out by Gombrich, In Search of Cultural History. But textbook writers are impervious to such advice. For discussion of the problem, sec chap. 3, below. 64. Thus Denys Hay's chapter on printing in The New Cambridge Modem History appears in vol. n: The Reformation 1520-59 although the end of the age of incunabula belongs within the 1011
interval covered by vol. 1: The Renaissance 1493-1520. Instead of being associated with 'intellectual tendencies' during the Reformation, I think Hay's chapter should precede and set the stage for R. Weiss, 'Learning and Education in R. Western Europe, 1490-1520.' 65. The theme of Chinese priority in the inventions of 'gunpowder' and printing was developed from sixteenth-century missionary reports and popularized by Renaissance men of letters, such as Montaigne. See 'On Coaches,' (1588), (tr. John Florio, 1600) as cited in The Portable Renaissance Reader, ed. Ross and McLaughlin, p. 157. Early seventeenth-century works comparing blockprinting in China unfavorably with Gutenberg's movable type arc described by Keller,' Mathematical Technologies,' p. 24. For standard treatments of this topic see Carter and Goodrich, The Invention of Printing in China and Fuhrman, 'The Invention of Printing.' That movable metal type was developed in pre-Gutenberg times in Asia (by the Koreans) has been uncovered since the seventeenth century. Discussion now centers on the advantages of an alphabetic as against an ideographic written language for full use of letterpress printing. 66. Braudel, Capitalism, chap. 6, pp. 285; 300. 67. Sarton, 'The Quest for Truth,' p. 67. For discussion of Sarton's changed opinion of the impact of print, which is muffled in his early work, sec pp. 507 ff, volume II below. 68. Gilmore, The World of Humanism, p. 186. Sec also informative discussion at the very outset of survey by Rice, The Fo1111datio11s of Early Modem Europe, pp. 1-10. An unusually perceptive passage on the new presses is contained in Hale, Renaissance Europe, pp. 188-90. 69. For further discussion, see chap. 4 below. 70. See sections on 'improvements in communication' in G. N. Clark, The Seventeenth Century, pp. 47--60; 330-333. Sec also treatment of slide rules and logarithms (p. 235); education (chap. 18) and literature (chap. 20) in same work. Clark's approach has been carried over into the influential work of Robert K. Merton on the sociology of science and hence is still noteworthy despite its age. For further discussion see pp. 46off., volume II below. 71. Since this was written there have appeared many volumes sponsored by two sections of the Ecole Pratiquc des Hautes Etudcs (the IVc Section publications by H.-J. Martin and his colleagues and those of the VIc Section by Robert Mandrou, Francois Furet and their colleagues), which suggest that the history of the book is being broadened to encompass cultural and political trends. Sec essays in Livre et Societe a11 XVIIIe Siecle and review articles by Dupront, 'Livre et Culture;' Trcnard, 'L'Histoirc des Mentalitcs Collectives;' Mandrou, Le Livre: Ce Ferment.' But in my view even these new studies muffle the impact of print in a manner suggested by Dupront's comment: 'Le Livre retarde,' p. 895. More explosive implications emerge from Robert Darnton's many pioneering articles (cited in the bibliographical index). For updated review of literature to 1976 sec Dim, 'Livre et Societe after ten years.' 72. This statement, made in 1970, now must make room for a welcome exception. Klaits' Printed Propaganda under Louis XIV contains a section on 'The Sun King and the Communications Revolution.' This entire monograph is devoted to the implications of new developments which came after print. In applying the term' communications revolution' to specifically seventeenthcentury phenomena, such as the new periodical press, however, Klaits still uses the term more narrowly than I do in this book. 73. North and Paul, 'An Economic Theory of the Growth of the Western World.' 74. See Clapham, 'Printing,' p. 377 for comment on naivete of sixteenth-century views. That inventions and discoveries have now come to be treated as highly problematic events is noted, with pertinent references, in my essay, 'Clio and Chronos,' p. 39, n. 9. 75. Steinberg, Five Hundred Years, p. 23. 76. Ibid. p. 22. 77. Ibid. p. 25. 1012
78. Ibid. p. 29. 79. Ibid. p. 133. 80. Hugh H. Davis, book review, Renaissance Quarterly (1973), p. 353. The Italian book under review shows that the same word 'codex' was used for both. 81. See e.g. works by H.J. Chaytor, E. P. Goldschmidt, and Lucien Febvre cited above. 82. This reluctance seems more common among professional historians and college professors than among secondary school history teachers. The latter arc likely to assign more significance to Gutenberg's invention than the former regard as justified. For a recent work by a former secondary school teacher which starts out by stressing 'the impact of printing' see McLean, Humanism and the Rise of Science in Tudor England, chap. I. Later sections of this work, however, seem to follow more conventional guidelines. See n. 85 below. 83. Hirsch, Printing, Selling, p. 2. 84. See preface (by Lucien Febvre) xxiii-xxix, introduction (by Marcel Thomas), pp. 1-24 and chap. l in Febvre and Martin, L' Apparition. In contrast to Steinberg's treatment, evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary changes in book format arc stressed by Martin, p. 108. 85. Febvre and Martin, L' Apparition, pp. 420-1. This passage is cited by many authorities (sec e.g. McLuhan, G11te11berg Galaxy, p. 142; McLean, Humanism, p. 22) all of whom tend to overlook the possibility_that an increased output of old texts may have contributed to the shaping of new ideas. Further discussion of this crucial point is offered in later chapters of this book. 86. Febvre and Martin, L'Apparition, pp. r93; 377; 394; 443. 87. Stephenson, A Brief Survey of Medieval Europe, p. 369. 88. Hay, introduction, Printing and the Mind of Man, p. xxii. (The sub-title of this work, which refers to 'the impact of print on the evolution of Western civilization,' is misleading. It is an enlarged descriptive catalogue containing over 400 entries on early editions of great books displayed at a London exhibition of 1963.) In his introduction to the New Cambridge Modem History I, 4, Hay similarly warns against overestimating the impact of print. 89. Saenger, 'Colard Mansion.' 90. Saenger, 'Colard Mansion,' p. 414. The reference to Mansion's 'successors' is somewhat puzzling. According to Erich von Rath, 'Printing in the Fifteenth Century,' p. 79, nothing more is heard of Mansion after his flight from Bruges in 1484. Other authorities concur. What editions 'his successors' turned out or who they were is unclear. 91. See estimates given both by Hirsch, Printing, Selling, pp. 66-7, and Febvre and Martin, L'Apparition, pp. 327-8, both of whom start by citing the findings of K. Haebler, The Study of Incunabula and thus note that Sweynheim and Pannartz, the first printers in Italy, listed 275 as their usual press output between 1465 and 1471. In the 1480s, between 400 and 500 copies became usual. This was also the decade when printed book prices dropped. (Saenger's comment: 'In general the first printed books were no cheaper than manuscripts' (p. 411, n. 14) is not helpful on this point.) In the 1490s, the number of copies became still larger. Up to 900 copies of a Latin Bible, 1,000 of a commentary on canon law, 1025 of an edition of Plato, 1,500 copies of Aristotle's Politics arc some of the figures cited by Lenhart, Pre-Reformation Printed Books: A Study in Statistical and Applied Bibliograpliy, p. 9. Lenhart's study which is devoted solely to pre-Reformation output contains just the sort of data Saenger would have us place in the post-Reformation epoch. For detailed evidence of rapid multiplication by Venetian presses of three manuscripts in vernacular translation provided by the Florentine merchant: Gerolamo Strozzi, see Edler de Roover, 'Per la Storia dell'arte della Stampa in Italia: come furono stampati a Venezia tre dei primi libri in volgare.' Over 1,500 volumes were produced between 1475 and 1476 to be distributed by Strozzi's Italian agents in Rome, Siena, Pisa and Naples or transported to Bruges and London on galleys. Venetian presses were thus serving Bruges markets even while Colard Mansion was at work. 1013
92. On Mansion's association with Caxton the most useful recent account is Painter, William Caxton, chap. 9. The most richly documented study is still Blades' Life of William Caxton, I, 39 ff. See also Buhler, review article The Library (1953); Blake, Caxton and His World, p. 62. 93. Saenger, 'Colard Mansion,' p. 416. Whether the use of the term scriptorium is justified in this case is a question for Delaisse's students to decide. Sec n. 28 above. 94. Painter, William Caxton, p. 102. 95. The absence of historical perspectives in such fields is underlined by Jowett, 'Toward a History of Communication.' Sec also Katzman, 'The Impact of Communication Technology.' Some of the propositions set forth by Katzman might be worth examining with regard to the shift from script to print. 96. 'Battle of the Senses.' 97. This is suggested by one of many recent publications by Ong, The Presence of the Word. Father Ong, who mastered intellectual history under the guidance of the late Perry Miller and produced a solid scholarly study of Ramus, seems to be more favorably inclined toward historical modes of argument than McLuhan. His speculations about the effects of media shifts on language, consciousness and rhetoric may be sampled in his collection of essays: Ong, Rhetoric, Romance and Technology which provides a list of his other works. 98. According to Burke, introduction, A New Kind of History, p. x, 'Marshall McLuhan has built his career on the reiteration of Febvre's thesis.' In view of the many other authorities McLuhan acknowledges in his work, the statement seems too strong. On Harold Innis, Lewis Mumford and several others who preceded Febvre as influences on McLuhan, sec Kuhns, The Post-Industrial Prophets, part 2. 99. Morison, 'The Learned Press as an Institution,' p. 153.
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SECTION 3
Peter Burke, Early Modern Venice as a Center of Information and Communication Scholars have long recognized the importance of Venice as a centre of publishing and printing in the Renaissance, and their studies have done much to highlight this history from a variety of vantage points, from the economic and business aspects of publishing, on the one hand, and the intellectual and cultural functions of the print shop, on the other. In this chapter Peter Burke shifts this discussion to the macrocultural scale and examines the history of printing from within what he calls “a regime of information and communication.” Drawing on a far-flung network of merchants, diplomats, spies, and other agents that reached from Europe through the Ottoman Empire all the way to India, Ceylon, and Burma, Venice emerged as the major European centre for political and economic news in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Moreover, the cosmopolitan nature of the city made it a major source of cultural information as well, and indeed it was in this period and important centre for books not only in Italian and Latin but also in Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Old Church Slavonic, Croat, and even Spanish. Venetian presses instructed readers throughout Europe about foreign regions as diverse as Persia and America, though by the end of the seventeenth century the focus of the Venetian information industry – whether political, economic, or cultural – grew increasingly provincial or regional as new centres of communication developed along the Atlantic seaboard. This chapter exemplifies how narratives of transformation and adjustment have replaced those of rise and decline in the formation of Venetian history. Early Modern Venice as a center of information and communication stands at the crossroads of the history of Venice and the history of information. Here I shall attempt to be mindful of the uniqueness of Venice while dealing with the rise of what might be called a new regime of information and communication following the invention of printing with movable type. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in particular Venice was the leading center of information and communication in Europe, its closest rivals being Genoa and Antwerp for economic information and Rome for political news. Even in the seventeenth century, when Amsterdam became a great information center, Venice still had a role to play. What made all these cities into centers was the regular arrival of information on many subjects-trade, war, politics, religion, and so on-from so many different places both inside and outside Europe. Given the relative cheapness of water transport, ports had an advantage over inland cities like Florence or Paris. Success bred success; some foreign traders and diplomats went to Venice to acquire information and in the process passed on some of their own. This chapter seeks to answer the following questions: How long did the centrality of Venice last? How and why and in what domains was it undermined? And by what city or cities was it replaced?
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Historiography The fundamental idea of Venice as a communication center is not new. It was fifty years ago that Pierre Sardella, in a study of news based on Marino Sanudo's diary, described Venice as "l'agence d'information le plus important du monde moderne naissant."1 Fernand Braudel drew on Sardella's work in his famous study of the Mediterranean world, published only a year later, noting that Venice was almost exactly halfway between Madrid and Istanbul.2 Since Sardella's day, especially since John Hale's volume on Renaissance Venice, intensive research on certain aspects of the topic has been carried out by economic historians, political historians, historians of religion, art historians, historians of literature, geographers, and bibliographers. 3 Indeed, it sometimes looks as if all roads lead to Venice. The later 1970s, for example, saw studies of the Venetian press by Leonardas Gerulaitis, Paul Grendler, and Martin Lowry, as well as a substantial collection of essays on Venice as a center of mediation between East and West, a topic also discussed by William McNeill in an essay describing Venice as "a cultural metropolis," although "a marginal polity," between 1481 and 1669." In the 1980s, contributions included Federica Ambrosini's book on the impact of the discovery of America on Venice, Claudia Bareggi's study of the activities of the poligrafi, Julian Raby on Venetian "orientalism," and a number of contributions to the multivolume Storia della cultura veneta.5 In the 1990s, one thinks of Paolo Preto's monumental work on the Venetian secret service, John Martin on heresy, and a collection of essays on the impact of America on Venetian culture.'' After so many monographs, some of which have undermined traditional ideas and assumptions, there is obviously a need for synthesis, for arranging the material in other ways in order to reveal connections and to engage with the general themes of continuity and discontinuity in Venetian history. It is obviously important to discuss the relation between the shape of Venetian society and the kinds of information circulating¡, or failing to circulate, in the city. Hans Kissling was surely right to place an emphasis on Venice as a "mercantile state," but it is equally important to discuss the effects of the diffusion of information on the Venetian political system. 7 In attempting the twin tasks of synthesis and reconsideration, this chapter focuses on two general problems and trends: the relation, or better the tension, between private and public information, secrecy and publicity, political pressures and economic ones; and the decline of Venice as a provider of information, or more exactly, its "intellectual involution," that is, its shift from a center of information about the world (especially the East) to a center of information about itself.
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Private, Economic, Political, and Religious Information Some scholarly debates were conducted more or less privately in the academies, on some occasions at least in order to restrict the flow of information. 8 Venice was also an important center for studies of "occult philosophy," on the edge between what we call "religion" and "science." The rise of interest in cabala is obviously linked to the growing importance of the Jewish community in the sixteenth century, but the adepts also included Christians, from the local friar Francesco Zorzi to the French scholar Guillaume Postel. Postel probably visited Venice in the first place because it was on the way to the Holy Land, but it was there he discovered the cabalist text Zahar and he went back several times to learn from people as diverse as the Jewish printer Daniel Bamberg and the living saint Madre Giovanna.9 However, it was not esoteric knowledge so much as practical everyday information for which Venice was best known in this period. The letters home written by merchants stationed abroad were an important source of information for the Venetians, a kind of "data bank," as a historian of Genoa has put it.10 So it is not surprising to find that the Venetians were pioneers in the organization of a postal system. It was in the fourteenth century that the government founded the Compagnia dei corrieri. In the mid-sixteenth century, when the Tasso family of Bergamo set up their corrieri ordinari, departing at fixed times, one of their main routes was between Milan and Venice. Even more important was the route between Rome and Venice. 11 The latest "news on the Rialto" was of obvious economic importance, with serious consequences for the grain market and the spice market in particular. 12 No wonder four Venetian nobles once removed part of the roof of the Palazzo Ducale in order to listen to a confidential report from Istanbul. 13 When rumors about spices from India arriving in Lisbon reached Venice in 1501, the reaction of the government was to send an agent, Lunardo Masser, to Portugal to discover what was happening. His report still survives. 14 When Antonio Pigafetta of Vicenza returned from his voyage round the world with Magellan, he visited Venice, where the Collegio heard his account oflndia "con gran attention."15 Given the presence of a colony of Venetian merchants in Istanbul and their permanent representative, the bailo, Venice was a natural center for economic information about the East, especially about the Ottoman Empire. The role of the bailo in the collection and transmission of information about the Turks and some of his main sources, from the official translators or dragomans to the sultan's physicians, have been investigated.16 Information arrived from Aleppo and Alexandria, where other Venetian merchants were established, and occasionally from more remote parts of the East. Nicolo Conti, for instance, spent nearly a quarter of a century, from 1419 to 1444, in 1017
India and Burma. Cesare Federici spent some twenty years in Bagdad, Hormuz, Ceylon, Sumatra, and Burma, returning to Venice in 1581. And Gasparo Balbi went first to Syria in 1576, then to India and Burma, returning in 1589.17 Given these economic interests, it is scarcely surprising that Venice was an important center of mapmaking in this period. In the fifteenth century, a Venetian mapmaker, Andrea Bianco, worked for the brother of the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese crown also bought a map from Fra Mauro of Murano. One of the earliest and most famous city maps of the Renaissance is the map of Venice by Jacopo de' Barbari.18 In the sixteenth century, the Venetian Giovanni Andrea Vavassore was a major publisher of maps, of Spain, France, Greece, and Britain as well as of Italian provinces, and the Piedmontese Giacomo Castaldi, an engineer in Venetian service, produced a series of detailed maps of Italy.19 At the end of the seventeenth century this tradition was revived by Vincenzo Coronelli (discussed below). By the late fourteenth century Italian diplomats were collecting information on behalf of their governments and sending it home in their dispatches. At first there seems to have been little interest in preserving these documents – the earliest collection of dispatches in the Venetian archives dates from 1477 - but the practice changed in the sixteenth century, with the Venetians among the pioneers. It has often been noted that the Venetians were among the first European powers to adopt the system of resident ambassadors, as much to gather information about other countries as to negotiate with them. The government expected to receive from its representatives abroad not only regular dispatches but also formal reports at the end of the mission, the famous relazioni, describing the political, military, and economic strengths and weaknesses of the state to which the ambassador had been accredited?20 These were read aloud in the Senate before being filed in the archives, as required by a decree of the Senate in 1524. However, these relazioni were better known abroad than the government would have wished. Indeed, they were used as models, not least for reports on Venice itself, which ranged from the objective to the satirical. A favorable example is Giovanni Botero's report, published in Venice itself in 1595 with a dedication to Doge Grimani and the Senate.21 The unfavorable, naturally anonymous, are perhaps most easily distinguished by their incipits. They include one addressed to Philip II ca. 1567 ("Se ad alcuno ambasciatore, cattolico re"), another ca. 1584 ("Tutto il governo della Repubblica di Venezia, si puo dire"), a third of 1620 ("Venetia sola tra tutte le citta d'Italia"); and the report of about r621 ascribed to the Spanish diplomat Alonso de la Cueva, marquis of Bedmar, beginning "Laboriosa impresa per certo e questo alla quale mi avingo," copies of which are still to be found in many European libraries.22 This is not the place to discuss the genre further, although it surely deserves a monograph. 1018
The Venetian government had other ways of acquiring information about foreign powers. The Council of Ten's cipher secretary Soro (active 1506-44), for example, was an expert in breaking the codes used by other states. The government also maintained a network of agents, or "spies." I put the word in quotation marks here not to suggest that the motives of the Venetians were idealistic but rather that the later division of labor between professional activities had not taken place: there was spying rather than spies.23 Venetian interest in the Ottoman Empire was at least as much political as economic. The bailo was expelled in 1491, accused of spying. 24 In 1511 the consul at Damascus was accused of the same offense. In 1507 the rettore of Cyprus sent agents to Persia. More informally, Venetian merchants in Damascus and elsewhere in the Middle East sent political information to the government.25 It seems appropriate that one of the ways to code information in this period was to describe political events in the language of merchants. At the time of Lepanto, for example, secret dispatches to Venice described the Turks as "drugs," the army as a "caravan," artillery as "mirrors," and so on.26 Economic espionage was also practiced.27 The information was of course confidential, more or less. Considerable effort was expended in keeping it secret, but equal effort was expended in uncovering it. One duty of sixteenth-century Spanish ambassadors to Venice was to discover what the government knew about the Turks. Rome tried to do the same.28 The government was extremely sensitive on the subject of secrecy, even for the early modern period, a time when, as recent research shows, material we might expect to be public was commonly regarded as confidential.29 In the fifteenth century, a considerable number ofindividuals were put on trial on a charge of revealing secrets of state. In the sixteenth century, the topic was a major preoccupation of the Council of Ten and of a new institution, the Inquisitori di Stato (given this name in the 1590s but active earlier).30 For example, in 1501 the Council of Ten forbade gossip about the ballots cast in the Great Council.31 In 1515 the Ten gave permission to two patricians, Andrea Mocenigo and Marino Sanudo, to use the archives for their histories of recent events, but on condition that these histories be submitted for approval before publication.32 The secret archives were guarded with such care - at least in theory - that even the doge was forbidden to enter the room in which they were kept unless he was accompanied, while the keeper was supposed to be unable to read and write.33 As is well known, Venetian nobles were forbidden to have contacts with foreign ambassadors for fear that they would reveal what ' was being discussed in the Senate and other places. Some scholars have spoken of the government's "obsession" with secrecy. Their concern was not pathological but simply a reaction to a political system in which an unusually large number of people had access to arcana imperii, which in monarchies were the preserve of the few. As Paolo Giovio suggested, the leaking of confidential information may reflect conflicts between factions.34 Despite official discouragement, secrets continued to be revealed. 1019
Among the more notorious cases were the accusation against Angelo Badoer in 1612 and the execution of Antonio Foscarini in 1622, part of the "witch hunt" following the recall in 1618 of the Spanish ambassador, Bedmar, who had a large network of agents in his service and was believed to have plotted to overthrow the Venetian government.35 Three examples of the sensitivity of the Venetian government, especially the Council of Ten, in this area are worth noting here. One might not have thought that Daniele Barbara's famous commentary on Vitruvius (1556) was a politically dangerous work, but objections were made to its publication on the grounds that designs of fortifications might help Venice's enemies. The second case was the arrest of Lazzaro Soranzo by the Council of Ten in 1598, following his publication in Ferrara of an anti-Turkish treatise which the government considered to have divulged confidential information about the Ottoman regime. 36 The third case involved the request by the heirs of Doge Niccolo Contarini for permission to publish his history of Venice. The reply of the consultants in 1638 was that the history should not be published because it contained confidential political maxims that they thought should not be divulged ("massime molto in time del governo che per verita non sappiamo se stia bene divulgarle"). The manuscript was therefore to be kept "in a secret place" in the archives. 37 Information about Venetian territory was also collected. For example, "the earliest state-sponsored maps" in Europe appear to be those commissioned by the Council of Ten in 1460.38 Needless to say, they were highly confidential documents. The famous Libra d'Oro, begun in 1506, in which patricians' births were recorded, is another early example of the state's concern with recording information for practical purposes. Censuses of the population were carried out more frequently in Venice than elsewhere from at least the sixteenth century on, and the eighteenth-century census in particular is a model of precise and detailed information. Like the Inquisition, the Venetian government encouraged ordinary people to denounce those who broke the law. Written denunciations were left in churches or on the stairs or at the doors of public buildings until the notorious bocche di leone, which fascinated foreign visitors such as Skippon, Saint-Didier, and Veryard, were constructed around the beginning of the seventeenth century, allowing delators to post their information to particular departments of government. 39 Venice also has a special place in the history of archives. In 15 86 an order was made to make a subject index of documents concerning the Senate, and in 1601 the first patrician was appointed to the new post of sopraintendente. The first holder of the office, Andrea Morosini, collaborated with Grand Chancellor Antelmi to make a catalogue, and a still more elaborate catalogue was compiled in 1669 under the supervision of Sopraintendente Battista Nani and Grand Chancellor Ballarin.40 One of the 1020
first books ever published about archives, De archivis, by Balthasar Bonifacio, was published in Venice by Pinelli in 1632. It was indeed appropriate that Ranke, whom Lord Acton called "the real originator of the heroic study of records," paid so much attention to Venice, but he was fortunate enough to arrive after 1797. Venice was a center of information about heresy, whether intended for the heretics themselves or for those who wished to persecute them. The city was the principal gateway through which the ideas of the German reformation reached Italy. A clandestine synod of Anabaptists was held in Venice in 1550. Clandestine publication also flourished. Italian translations of Luther (without Luther's name on the title page) could be found in the city. Sanudo notes that copies of a treatise by Luther were found in a Venice bookshop in 1520.41 Heretical books were sometimes published in Venice, as in the famous case of the Bcneficio di Cristo, published by Bindoni in 1543 (the only surviving copy, out of reach of censors and inquisitors, is still to be found in the library of St John's College, Cambridge). In the 1540s the smuggling of heretical books was well organized, with Pietro Perna in Basel as the chief supplier and a number of Venetian booksellers involved (Andrea Arrivabene, the Valgrisi, the Ziletti).42 In the first years after the Inquisition was established it was the clergy, parish priests and friars, who drew the Holy Office's attention to heretics. From the 1560s on, denunciations came from the laity.43 Some printers, such as Valgrisi, were brought before the Inquisition on charges of owning or publishing heretical books. The Commercialisation of Information Private information had its ways of becoming public. One famous institution for divulging confidential information, as well as criticizing individuals was the so-called Gobbo di Rialto. The Rialto was of course a place where official decrees were "published." Sanudo records an irreverent message attached to a column there in 1532. From the late sixteenth century on a statue that had been placed there in 1541 and nicknamed "the hunchback" was, like the "Pasquino" in Rome, a site for outspoken anonymous political comment.44 The crucial point of contact and tension between public and private was the news. Oral information about political events had its own geography. When the Florentine humanist Giannozzo Manetti was on a mission to Venice in 1448, he went to the Palazzo Ducale on Mondays and Saturdays to visit the Signoria, attend sessions of the Great Council, and learn the news from Lombardy, Tuscany, and elsewhere.45 The Palazzo Ducale was also the main source for Sanudo's famous diary, which has been called a "news chronicle" because the entries so often begin with the formula "news came." However, as we have seen, private or even top-secret information had a way of becoming public property. In 1567 a German called Venice the metropolis of news.46 1021
By this time weekly manuscript a1J1Jisi (newsletters) were in circulation.47 The Council of Ten outlawed the activities of the novellisti, as they were often called, in 1571, describing them as those "che fanno publica professione di scriver nove, peril che sono salariati di diversi."48 All the same, the writing of manuscript newsletters by "reporters" (reportiste) continued to flourish in the eighteenth century.49 Patricians needed information about one another, about offices, and about ballots in order to plan their careers, and by the early seventeenth century they were able to buy such information from clerks and ballottini in the form of manuscript pocketbooks such as the zuccheta and the conscgi or brogietti, to the shock of the Council of Ten, who complained about this practice in 1618.50 Manuscript copies were made of the official relazioni by whom we do not know. Francesco Sansovino's biography of Charles V, for example, made use of relazioni by Bernardo Navagero and Marino Cavalli, ambassadors to the imperial court. 51 By the seventeenth century at the latest, these relazioni were on sale in certain European cities, notably Rome (to the shock of Venetian ambassadors to Rome, such as Leonardo Dona in 1600 and Lorenzo Tiepolo in 1713), and some copies still survive in public and private libraries.52 The ex-secretary to the French ambassador to Venice, Amelot de la Houssaie, was able to use letters, memoirs, and relazioni of ambassadors for a history of Venice that made public what he called "les mysteres de la domination.''53 It was only to be expected that sooner or later someone would be enterprising and bold enough to print some relazioni. One step was taken by a printer of Bergamo, Comin Ventura, who edited an anthology of texts under the title Tesoro politico, published, according to the title page, in Cologne in 1593. Later editions appeared in Milan and Vicenza but not, prudently enough, either in Bergamo or in Venice. Three more relazioni by Venetian ambassadors to Rome were published in 1672 under the title Li tesori della carte romana. The place of publication was given as Brussels, and there was no printer's name on the title page. Given this flourishing trade in political information, one might have expected Venice to become an early center of newspapers. However, in comparison with other Italian cities, such as Genoa, Rome, Bologna, Milan, or Turin, Venice was slow to develop printed gazzette dealing with current events.54 Presumably the authorities, concerned as usual with secrecy, discouraged these activities. What was printed was relatively anodyne. Albrizzi, for example, published a list of officeholders in 1673 under the title Protogiornale Veneto, and Coronelli published a similar Giornale for four consecutive years, 1713-16. Albrizzi also published flysheets about the wars with the Turks, for example, the Giornale de/ Campo Cesareo sot to Buda (1686).
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All the same, when early modern Venice is described as a center of infonnation and communication, it is above all on account of print. It was appropriate for Venice to become a printing center because it was already a center for other kinds of communication, as an international port, as the capital of what was still in part a maritime empire, and as an unusually large city for this period. In the course of the fifteenth century more books were printed in Venice than in any other city in Europe (4,500 titles, in other words about 150 a year, and 2.5 million copies seems a reasonable estimate).55 In the sixteenth century, when the city began to lose this relative lead over other centers, such as Paris, book production remained stable or even continued to increase. It has been estimated that' about five hundred printers and publishers produced from 15,000 to 17,500 titles (150-75 a year) and possibly 18 million copies in the course of the century.56 The work of Aldus was continued by such printers as Gabriele Giolito, who printed about 850 books at Venice before his death in 1578 and owned shops in Bologna, Ferrara, and Naples. 57 Scholars have emphasized the oligarchic structure of the printing industry in the fifteenth century, the small group in control. Nicolas Jenson, for example, was supported by two merchants from Frankfurt. His press, with thirty employees, has been described as "possibly the largest private industrial establishment in Venice."58 By the sixteenth century, on the other hand, the large number of rival printing houses was one of the attractions of Venice for Pietro Aretino and other professional writers of the time, like Ludovico Dolce, Ludovico Domenichi, Girolamo Ruscelli, and Francesco Sansovino. These were the famous poligrafi, men who made a living without depending on patrons by producing what publishers such as Marcolini, Giolito, or Valgrisi thought would sell-prose and verse, fact and fiction, translations, adaptations and plagiarisms from other authors.59 Domenichi, for example, translated Alberti, Polybius, and Xenophon. Dolce (who supposedly published no fewer than 358 works) wrote comedies, translated Euripides, edited Aretino, Boccaccio, Castiglione, and Petrarch, and plagiarized a treatise on the art of memory. Ruscelli edited a rival version of Boccaccio's Decameron. Sansovino in particular specialized in providing practical information, including a manual of letter writing and a guide to Venice for visitors (discussed below). In other words, there was by the mid-sixteenth century a "Venetian Grub Street," probably unparalleled until the seventeenth century in the Dutch Republic and the eighteenth century in London and Paris.60 Given the importance of rival information centers in early modern Europe, it is important to distinguish the domains in which Venice was strong from those in which it was relatively weak. One of the areas in which it was weak was mathematics and natural philosophy (with exceptions such as Euclid, Archimedes, and Tartaglia in mathemat1023
ics, Vesalius and Colombo in anatomy, and Fracastoro and Falloppio in medicine).''' The reason may have been that a university town such as Padua was an obvious place for publishing this kind of book. On the other hand, in the military field Venice played a dominant role. No fewer than 145 military books were printed there between 1492 and 1570.62 For books on the arts, Venice probably fell behind Florence, with the exception of illustrated treatises on architecture by Vitruvius, Alberti, Serlio, Palladio, Scamozzi, and so on, of which at least sixty editions appeared in two centuries, 1495-1694 (appendix table 1). Like Florence, Venice was a major center for the publication of classics of vernacular literature. The first edition of Castiglione's Courtier; for instance, was published by Aldus in 1528, followed by at least forty-three more editions by 1606.'63 Like the works of Petrarch and Ariosto, the Courtier was provided by the poligrafi with an editorial apparatus to help the reader-tables of contents, marginal glosses, summaries, indexes, and so on.64 Venice was an early center of music publication, associated in particular with Ottaviano dei Petrucci, who had a monopoly in this field from 1498 to 1520, and later with the Gardano family, active in this field for more than sixty years (1538-1600). In history and geography Venetian publishers were strong. Looking only at general books or reference books, we find at least eight editions of Ptolemy's geography (translated from the Greek by Ruscelli) published in the sixteenth century by Pedrezano and others. Botero's Relazioni universali went through nine editions in Venice between 1599 and 1671. Venetian-printed maps of the sixteenth century have an important place in the history of cartography. The Venetians published more than one edition of Guicciardini's classic history of Italy and at least three editions of Giovio's history of his own time (translated into Italian by Domenichi and edited by Ruscelli). They published chronologies such as Sansovino's world chronology (1580) and its rival, Bardi's universal chronology (1581), as well as Marco Guazzo's history of the world. The most important works of contemporary history published in Venice in the seventeenth century are listed in appendix table 4. Cosmopolitan Publishing One reason for Venice's importance as a con1nmnication center was the temporary or permanent presence of many foreigners. Venice was a point of "confluence of divergent traditions," Greek, Jewish, German, "Slavonian," and so on.65 It was via a diaspora of German printers that the process of printing with movable type spread through Europe, one of many examples of the importance of diasporas in European cultural history. In Venice the first printer was Johan von Speyer, who arrived in the city in 1469. By 1500 about twenty-five German printing firms had opened in the city.66 Printers also included Frenchmen, including Nicolas Jenson, who arrived ca. 1024
1471, and Vincent Vaugris, who arrived from Lyon in 1530s and became known as Valgrisi. Aldus Manutius, whose family came from Bassiano, near Rome, was also an immigrant. The existence of subcultures within Venice made it possible for local printers to act as cultural middlemen more fully than elsewhere. Venice was not unique in this respect in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Rome, Istanbul, Lyon, Antwerp, Seville, and Amsterdam were all cosmopolitan cities with ethnic subcultures. All the same, a distinctive feature of Venice as an information center was its polyglot nature, linked to the importance of its minorities.67 For example, it was obviously easier to publish Greek books in Venice than in many other cities because Greek refugees from the Turks came to Venice, especially after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. The role of Greek scholars, such as Musurus, in editing classical Greek texts is well known, but the compositors presumably were Greeks as well.68 Publishing in ancient Greek in Venice has been studied in detail.69 The first Greek text printed in Venice was in 1471, and Aldus entered this field in 1494. 70 The bestknown of Greek printers were probably Zacharias Callergi (Kalliergis) and his partner the merchant Nicholas Vlastos, both originally from Crete. Janos Grigoropoulos corrected proofs for them and for Aldus.71 Other Greek printers included Demetrios Zenos, active in the 1520s; Dominikos Hetepolonios, who was printing in 1602; and Nikolaos Saros, active in 1689-95.72 These enterprises seem to have been small, but large firms like Sessa and Zanetti published in Greek occasionally, sometimes the classics, sometimes the liturgy. From 1509 on, Venetians also printed books in demotic Greek for export throughout the Greek-speaking world, beginning with the Apokopos of Bergadhis, which was reprinted more than once in Venice before the end of the century. 73 From the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the Jews began to arrive from Spain, the Hebrew press in Venice was "the most important in Europe."74 This aspect of Venetian publishing has also been studied in detail. Among the printers were Daniel Bomberg, originally from Antwerp, active in 1515-48, producing some two hundred titles, notably the Talmud (one assumes that the compositors too were Jewish). It is somewhat more surprising to find two Venetian patricians in the business, Marco Antonio Giustinian, active in 1545-51, who squeezed Bomberg out but was ruined when the Council of Ten forbade printing in Hebrew; and Alvise Bragadin, who accused Giustinian of trying to ruin him but was active in 1550-74 (the family continued the business). Jewish printers included the Parenzo family, Asher and Meir, who helped Bragadin, active in 1545-96; and Giovanni di Gara, active in 1563-1600.75 Venice was also a center of production of translations of Arabic books, thanks perhaps to the tradition of trade in the Middle East, but this aspect of Venetian publishing 1025
has attracted less attention. Arab works translated into Latin were already being published in the late fifteenth century. Avicenna, for instance, was published in Venice in 1486 and at least thirteen more times by 1595. Averroes did not do so well, though there were editions of works of his in 1542 and 1553, not to mention the commentaries. The astrologer Abd Al-Aziz was printed in 1482, 1491, 1512, 1521, and so on.76 In 1538 the Venetian printer Paganino de Paganinis produced a Koran in Arabic, presumably for sale in the Ottoman Empire (despite the prohibition).77 Another Venetian printer, Arrivabene, published a Koran in Italian in 1547. The role of Venice (like its rival Tubingen) in the publication of books in Old Church Slavonic and Croat also deserves attention (see appendix table 2). A few "Slavonian" printers established there printed books in their own language: Jakov iz Kamene Reke, for instance, Jeronim Zagurovic, Frano Ratkov, and above all the Vukovic family, active in 1519-80. Other Venetian firms also catered to this market, including Andrea Torresano, Aldus's father-in-law: Marcolini; Bindoni; and Rampazetto. The majority of these books, sixty in all, were liturgical texts in Cyrillic or Glagolitic, in other words (as in the case of music publication) information for performance. However, there ¡were also a few vernacular literary texts, now considered the early classics of Croat literature, by authors such as Marko Marulic, Marin Drzic, Hanibal Lucic, Petar Hektorovic, Petar Zoranic, Dinko Zlataric, and Ivan Gundulic. These were printed in the Latin alphabet. There was one translation from Italian into Croat, Tasso's Aminta, as well as translations from Croat into Italian.78 Finally, the Spanish connection deserves to be emphasized. A considerable number of Spanish books were published in Venice. For example, the famous romance of chivalry Amadis de Gaula was published in Venice in Spanish by Pedrezano, a printer who seems to have specialized in Spanish books, in 1533. Giolito published the works of the Spanish poets Juan Boscan and Garcilaso de la Vega and even Spanish translations of Ariosto and Giovio, presumably for export either to Spain or to Milan. Medina's Arte del navegar was published in Spanish by Pedrczano, while Jorge de Montemayor's pastoral novel Diana was published by Conlin de Trino (appendix table 3). Books translated from Spanish, some of which are discussed below, were much more numerous. An important figure in mediating between Venice and Spanish culture was Alfonso de Ulloa, a Spanish gentleman who became a leading poligrafo in Venice. As in the cases of Greek, Hebrew, and Slavonic books, the presence in Venice of writers from the culture facilitated the task of the printers. The texts of the Celestina, Amadis, and Primaleon (another romance of chivalry) were all revised by the writer Francisco Delicado, who seems to have worked regularly for the publisher Pedrezano. The Spanish nobleman Alfonso de Ulloa spent more than twenty years in Venice (1548-70), beginning his career there as secretary to don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, 1026
the Spanish ambassador to Venice, and later turning poligrafo and working for Giolito and other publishers not only as an original writer (the author of a biography of Charles V) but also as a translator and editor (Montemayor's Diana appeared "corregida y revista por Alfonso Ulloa").79 Venice was also a center for the publication of translations from Spanish into Italian, whether of moral works like those of Guevara (a sixteenth-century bestseller whose letters became a school textbook in Italy), works of piety such as those by Luis de Granada, or works of history, especially the history of the New World. Ulloa translated Columbus, Covarrubias, Mexia, Urrea, and Zarate into Italian. Works of Spanish fiction published in Italian in Venice included not only romances of chivalry such as Amadis and Tirant lo Blanc but also Don Quixote and the picaresque novels Lazarillo, Guzman, and Justina, thanks in large part to the efforts of a single printer, Barezzo Barezzi, who translated most of them himself. 80 The World Beyond Europe News of the discovery of America reached Venice later than it did Rome, Paris, and Florencc.81 All the same, thanks perhaps to the Spanish connection, Venice was second only to Paris in terms of the amount of Americana published in the sixteenth century. It included accounts by Columbus, Vespucci, Cortes, and Oviedo (whose Summario was published in 1534), as well as a plagiarism of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera (the anonymous Libretto de tutte le navigationi del Re di Spagna of 1504), and the later histories of Mexico, Peru, and so on by Lopez de G6mara, Cieza, Zarate, Benzoni, and others. For example, twelve editions of the Italian translation ofL6pez de G6mara were published in Venice between 1557 and 1599, and at least six editions of the translation of Cieza were published between 1555 and 1576.82 Some accounts of the discoveries were either written or compiled in Venice, like the three-volume Navigationi e viaggi (1550-59), edited by the Venetian civil servant Giovanni Battista Ramusio.83 Ramusio, who had already edited Oviedo's Summario, was a member of a group of intellectuals interested in the New World, such as Bembo, Fracastoro, and Andrea Navagero, who used his time as a diplomat in Spain not only to study the peninsula but also to make friends with Pietro Martire and to forward information about the New World to Ramusio. In any case, Venice was already a center of printed information about the "East" linked to travels of merchants and others.84 At least four editions of Marco Polo were published there between 1496 and ca. 1555, including the first edition in Italian, and nine editions of the fictitious travels of "Sir John Mandeville" between 1491 and 1567.85 Luigi Ronsaggio, a factor in Egypt and Syria who traveled in India, published his Viaggio di Colowt in 1539. Federici's Viaggio dell'India Orientali was published in 1027
1587 (appearing in English translation in Hakluyt's famous collection only a year later), and Balbi's Viaggio dell'Indie Oricntali appeared in 1590. The history of the East Indies by Lopes de Castanheda and the history of China by Gonzalez de Mendoza appeared in Venice in Italian translation in 1577 and 1586, respectively. There was particular interest in Persia. Ambrogio Contarini's account of his mission to the shah of Persia in the 1470s (to arrange an alliance against the Turks) was published in 1487 and again in 1524 and 1543, and Caterino Zeno's account of a similar mission, also in the 1470s, was published in 1558.86 G. T. Minadoi's history of the wars between the Turks and the Persians was published in 1588 and again in 1594. Pietro della Valle's account of the shah of Persia was published in 1628, and his description of that country appeared in 1661. Needless to say, the Ottoman Empire attracted even more public interest in Venice, despite the qualms of the Council of Ten. Giovio's famous account of the Turks was published four times between 1538 and 1541. Benedetto Ramberti’s Le tre cose de' Turchi, a firsthand account by a Venetian, was published in 1539. G. P. Contarini's account of the war between the sultan Selim and Venice was published in 1572. Probably the biggest publishing success, however, was Francesco Sansovino's Historia universale de' Turchi, first published in 1560 and reaching its eighth edition in 1600.87 What was published was not always what the authorities would have liked. Three editions of Giovio on the Turks were anonymous, as if the printers were aware of the official concern with the subject. I have tried to suggest that the Venetians produced, circulated, and received the information they deserved in the sense that in certain important respects the information structure was related to, if not a simple expression of, the economic, social, and political system. As Kissling has suggested, the fact that Venice was a "mercantile state' rather than a feudal-agrarian one was reflected in its information services, dependent, especially in the fifteenth century, on a network of merchants."" I have illustrated this point in the last few pages, as well as adding two of my own. First, I have emphasized the contribution of Venetian subcultures (Greek, Jewish, Slavonian, and so on) to the polyglot printing for which the city was famous. Second, I have discussed the relation between the circulation of political information in and around Venice and the distinctive structure of the state. A regime with a Maggior Consiglio of some two thousand members cannot keep its secrets. Hence both the leakage of politically sensitive information and the recurrent attempts to stop the leaks, from prohibiting patricians from meeting foreign ambassadors to discouraging printed journalism.
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Intellectual Involution Change in Venice during the early modern period has usually been presented in terms of decline, whether economic, political, or cultural, and assessments of the fortunes of the Venetian book trade are no exception. As early as 1603 the Senate expressed the fear that the printing industry was virtually disappearing, "annichilando grandemente."89 Recent historians of Venetian publishing have told an almost equally sad story. Paolo Ulvioni emphasized the decline in the number of printers in the seventeenth century. Mario Infelise treated the period from 1600 to the 1680s as one of prolonged "crisis."90 William McNeill is exceptional in his insistence that Venice remained a cultural "metropolis" as late as 1669. 91 Decline in a relative sense over the long term there surely was, for at least two reasons. In the first place, Venetian tolerance for other cultures and other religions, the practical live-and-let-live attitude of merchants, was undermined by the spread of the Counter Reformation, at least from the arrival of Giovanni Della Casa as papal nuncio in 1544. The Inquisition was established in Venice in 1547, books were burned on piazza San Marco and near the Rialto in 1548, a Venetian Index of Prohibited Books was produced in 1549, and a ban on Hebrew printing was issued in 1554 (lasting until 1563). The fate of Guillaume Postel illustrates the change in climate. This unorthodox scholar returned to Venice around 1547. He was appointed chaplain of the Ospedaletto and censor of Hebrew books. He was also confessor to Madre Giovanna, a charismatic holy woman whom he believed to be the new Messiah. However, Postel was forced to leave Venice in 1549. He returned soon thereafter but was interrogated by the Inquisition in 1555, declared insane, and imprisoned in Ravenna. 92 Booksellers began to be interrogated on charges of smuggling heretical or otherwise pernicious books from abroad. In 1570, for example, an Inquisition raid revealed copies of Machiavelli in the shops of Gilio Bonfadio, Vincenzo Valgrisi, Pietro da Fino, and Gabriele Giolito. Some printers migrated to cities such as Turin, Rome, and Naples, in sufficient numbers to alarm the Senate in 1601.93 Others, such as Giolito, shifted their investments toward the publication of devotional books in Italian for a geographically more limited market. Giolito himself translated Luis de Granada. In the second place, the discovery of the New World undermined the importance ofVenice as an information and commercial center in the long run by shifting Europe's center of gravity westward toward the Atlantic. The Turkish occupation of Syria and Egypt reinforced the change. Lucien Febvre, writing to Henri Pirenne, once wished he could juxtapose two maps, one showing that in 1490 Venice was "le centre privilegie du monde economique connu," the other showing that in 1600 "die n' etait plus qu 'une cite peripherique."94 It was therefore time for another city to take over the role of Europe's center of information and communication. The immediate successor to Ven1029
ice was Antwerp, about which a Venetian envoy admitted, "I saw Venice outdone."95 In similar fashion the Venetian merchant Giovanni Zonca commented in the 1560s on the "grande libertade" of Antvverp.96 After the Spanish recapture of Antwerp and the blockade of the Scheidt it would be Amsterdam's turn. The decline of Venice relative to other centers should not be treated as absolute, or exaggerated, or dated too early, or linked too closely to the numbers of printers even if William McNeill may have been a little too generous in describing Venice as a "cultural metropolis" in the 1660s. Rather than a steady decline or a simple continuity, there was an ebb and flow of different kinds of information. For example, a revival of printing took place at the end of the seventeenth century, culminating (from the information point of view) in the ten-volume Nuouo dizionario scientifico, edited by Gianfrancesco Pivati and published by Miloco between 1746 and 1751.97 From the 1750s on, however, the printing industry declined once more.98 Again, in the early seventeenth century Venice seems to have been more of a center of scientific information than ever before. Galileo was attracted to the city at the beginning of the seventeenth century, a time when a number of patricians were interested in "natural philosophy;' and it was there that he learned of the new Dutch telescope, which he proceeded to imitate. At this time Paolo Sarpi was at the center of an international network of communication that included letters, visits to his convent by foreigners, and the bookshop Nave d'Oro, where he met his friends and held court.99 The postal system continued to expand in this period. By the early seventeenth century couriers traveled weekly from Venice to Brussels (departing on Fridays) and Vienna (departing on Saturdays), fortnightly to Lyon, and monthly to Istanbul.100 Giuseppe Miselli wrote in 1684 that letters could be sent via the ordinary Venetian couriers to the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, and Istanbul. 101 It is likely that political and geographical factors rather than economic ones underlay this expansion. It was not so much a matter of Venice's setting up a system as of the imperial court's, say, communicating with Istanbul through Venice. In the sphere of clandestine publication there was continuity, despite attempts at repression. The satires of Ferrante Pallavicino, who lived in Venice from about 1636 and died because he let himself be tempted to leave, were probably published in the city under false imprints. A leading printer, Marco Ginammi, published Machiavelli in 1630 and 1648 and may have published the pornographic Alcibiadefanciullo a scuola ("Oranges," 1652).102 In 1653 the Senate expressed alarm at the "clandestine printing of impious, obscene, and satirical works [opere empie, obscene, malediche]" and forbade printers to put false places of publication on the title page.103 Two years later, however, Giovanni Maria Turrini, another leading printer (who had published what he called the "permitted works" of Ferrante Pallavicino in 1654), was accused of publish1030
ing heretical books.104 It is likely that Meietti, who republished most of Sarpi's works between 1673 and 1685, occasionally claiming to do so not in Venice but in Mirandola, reprinted the forbidden History of the Council of Trent. The Venetian poligrafi of the sixteenth century are well known. Less familiar are their equivalents in the mid-seventeenth century, a second wave. This second group specialized in publishing books on recent history and sometimes in supplying more up-todate information on a private basis. They included Count Maiolino Bisaccioni, who lived and wrote in Venice for nearly thirty years, ca. 1635-63; Giambattista Birago Avogadro, who spent most of his life there; and Girolamo Brusoni, who was best known as a novelist but also active as a historian. Venetian publishers, notably Ginammi, Baba, Baglioni, and Combi, printed the work of a wide range of Italian historians, together with the occasional foreigner, such as Pierre Mathieu. In the age of the Thirty Years' War and the "revolutions" of the 1640s contemporary history seems to have sold well. Turrini published Ricci's account of the Thirty Years' War, Debellis germanicis, in 1649, only a year after the making of peace. The official printer Pinelli published regular accounts of Venetian naval engagements. As appendix table 4 shows, Venetian presses published a good deal about the history of central and eastern Europe, which was appropriate since the postal service from Italy to these regions went through Venice. Books in Greek, especially liturgical books, continued to be printed by Antonio Pinelli (1603-31) and his family and also by Andrea Giuliano (1656-87). Given its links with the Ottoman Empire, it is not surprising to find that Venice was one of the first European cities to establish coffeehouses, about 1645. Florian's dates from 1720. Newspapers were available there in the eighteenth century, as they were in the Bottega di Cafe on Campo Santo Stefano. In 1778 a witness describes another cafe, La Regina d'Ungheria, as a center of novellisti.105 The wider world was not completely forgotten. For example, Venice was one of the few places in the world where Armenian books were printed, eight of them in the sixteenth century (all by Armenian printers), more than thirty in the seventeenth century, and still more in the eighteenth century, when the Bortali family specialized in this line of publishing.106 Four works on the Americas by Bartolome de Las Casas were printed by Marco Ginammi between 1626 and 1643 in both Spanish and Italian versions.107 Three editions of the Italian translation of the History of the Conquest of Mexico, by Antonio de Solis, were published by Poletti in Venice in 1704, 1715, and 1733. The great tradition of Venetian geography was revived by Vincenzo Coronelli, who published his multivolume world atlas with Albrizzi between 1691 and 1697, at a time when the printing industry was beginning to revive.108 It was in Venice that the contemporary historian Birago Avogadro published his history of Africa in 1650 and 1031
Giovanni Sagredo published his history of the Ottoman sultans in 1688.109 Two editions of the travels of Pietro della Valle in the Orient were published by Baglioni in the 1660s. The Englishman Paul Rycaut's history of the Turks was published in translation by Cambi in 1673. The Venetian physician Nicolao Manucci, who was inspired by Marco Polo's example to see the world and who lived in India from the 1650s on, sent the manuscript of his history of the Mogul Empire to the Venetian Senate, hoping that they would publish it.110 A fellow physician who traveled the same route and met Manucci in India, Angelo Legrenzi, published Il Pellegrino nell’ Asia in Venice in 1705. 111 However, Manucci's hopes were disappointed. Indeed, a process of what might be called "intellectual involution" became evident quite early in the seventeenth century, if not before. Involution is not a euphemism for decline but a way of describing a shift. The city gradually became less metropolitan and more provincial. In the economic sphere, for example, Venice became a center of regional rather than international trade.112 From the communication point of view, the city was most important in the later period as a center of information about itself. This was the positive aspect of involution, and a response to the increasing numbers of visitors to the city. Books published in Venice and about Venice included Gasparo Contarini's treatise on the government, with at least six Venetian editions in Latin or Italian between 1544 and 1591; the histories of Venice by Paolo Paruta (1605, 1645), Paolo Morosini (1637), and especially Battista Nani (1662, 1663, 1676, 1679, 1686); Stringa's description of the church of San Marco (1610); Luca Assarino's .Merm;iglie dell'Arsenalc (1639); Marco Boschini's Minere della pittura (1664), oriented toward foreign tourism; and Cristofaro Ivanovich's history of Venetian opera, Minerva al Tavolino (1681). Gozzi's famous Gazzetta Veneta (1760), one of the most famous examples of Enlightenment moral journalism, also offered information about the city. Especially important were Francesco Sansovino's guides to the city, the little dialogue Cose notabili, first published in 1556, and the massive treatise Venezia citta nobilissima, of 1581. Between them, these guides had passed through at least 38 editions by 1692, from thirteen different publishers: Calepino, Cestari, Comin, Curti, Didini, Farri, Herz, Imberti, Miloco, Rampazetto, Salicato, Spineda, Tramontin, Valgrisi, Valvassori, Viani (appendix table 4). The dialogue appeared under various titles-Cose maravigliose, Cose maravigliose e notabili, Cose notabili e maravigliose - and even authors, Sansovino's name being replaced on occasion by that of Anselmo Guisconi or Girolamo Bardi. In the case of Venezia citta nobilissima, the title pages proclaim the superiority of each successive edition, the information being "riformate, accommodate e grandemente ampliate," "con nuova aggiunta," and so on, thanks to the work of four different editors, Giovanni Niccolo Doglioni (disguised as "Leonico Goldioni"), Stringa, 1032
Martinioni, and Zittio. The number of copies of these works to be found in foreign libraries, notably in France, suggests their importance to foreign visitors for more than a century. They were eventually replaced by Coronelli's Guida de'forestieri, which had reached its fourth edition by 1700. One might treat the fate of Sansovino's books as symbolic. His studies of the Turks were forgotten, whereas his guides to Venice continued to sell. At one time foreigners had gone to Venice to learn about the contemporary world. By the seventeenth century they were going to admire the city's past. Notes My thanks to the conference participants for their questions and comments and especially to John Martin, Juergen Schulz, and Jonathan Walker. I should also like to thank Brendan Dooley for his constructive criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper. 1. Pierre Sardella, Nouvelles et speculations a Venise au debut du XVIe siede (Paris, 1948), 10, 14. 2. Fernand Braudel, La Mediterranee et le monde mediterraneen a l’epoqee de Philippe II (Paris, 1949), 317; cf. Federico Melis, "La diffusione dell'informazione economica nel Mediterraneo," in Melanges Braudel, ed. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, 2 vols. (Toulouse, 1973), i: 389-424. 3. J. R. Hale, Renaissance Venice (London, 1973). 4. Leonardas V Gerulaitis, Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice (Chicago, 1976); Paul Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press (Princeton, 1977); Martin Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius (Oxford, 1979); Hans-Georg Beck et al., eds., Venezia centro di mediazione tra Oriente e Occidente (secoli XV-XVI): Aspetti e problemi, 2 vols. (Florence, 1977); William McNeill, Venice: The Hinge of Europe, 1081-1797 (Chicago, 1974). 5. Federica Ambrosini, Pacsi e mari ignoti: America e colonialismo europep nella cultura veneziana (secoli XVI-XVII) (Venice, 1982); Claudia di Filippo Bareggi, II mestiere di scrivere: Lavoro intellettuale e mercato librario a Venezia nel '500 (Rome, 1988); Julian Raby, Venice, Durer, and the Oriental Mode (London, 1982); Girolamo Arnaldi and Manlio Pastore Stocchi, eds., Staria della cultura veneta, vols. 3 and 4 (Vicenza, 1980-83). 6. Paolo Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia (Milan, 1994); John Martin, Venice's Hidden Enemies: Italian Heretics in a Renaissance City (Berkeley, 1993); Angela Caracciolo Arico, ed., L'impatto della scaperta dell'America nella cultura veneziana (Rome, 1990). 7. Hans J. Kissling, "Venezia come centro di informazione sui Turchi," in Beck et al., Venezia ccntra, 1:97-109. 8. William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modren Culture (Princeton, 1994). 9. Marion L. Kuntz, Guillaume Postel (The Hague, 1981), 73-83. 10. Giorgio Doria, "Conoscenza del mercato e sistema infonnativo: Il know-how dei mercantifinanzieri genovesi nei secoli XVI e XVII," in La rcpubblica intcrnazionalc del denara Ira XV c XVII secolo, ed. Aldo de Maddalena and Hermann Kellenbenz (Bologna, 1986), 57-115. 11. Bruno Caizzi, Dalla pasta dei re alla pasta di tutti (Milan, 1993), 211-62. 12. Sardella, Nouvelles et speculations, n9-37. 13. Donald E. Queller, The Venetian Patriciate: Reality versus Myth (Urbana, 1986). 14. Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, 218. 15. Marino Sanuto, I diarii di Marino Samuto, ed. Rinaldo Fulin ct al., 58 vols. (Venice, l 8791903), 3 5:173. 1033
16. See, e.g., Kissling, "Venezia come centro di informazione," 106; and Robert Mantran, "Venise, centre d'information sur les Tures," in Beck et al., Venezia centro, 1:113-14. 17. Luca Campigotto, "Veneziani in India nel XVI sccolo," St11di Veneziani, n.s., 22 (1991): 75116; Alessandro Grossato, Navigatori e viaggiatari vencti sulla rotta per I'India (Florence, 1 994). 18. Juergen Schulz, "Jacopo de' Barbari's View ofVenice: Map Making, City Views, and Moralized Geography before the Year 1500," Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 425-74. 19. Numa Broc, La geographie de la Renaissance, 2d ed. (Paris, 1986), 51, 126; Luisa d'Arienzo, "La presenza veneziana in Portogallo," in Arico, L'impatto della scoperta dell'America, 65. 20. Armand Baschet, Les archives de Venise (Paris, 1870), 331-61; Donald E. Queller, "How to Succeed as an Ambassador," Studia Gratiana 15 (1972): 665-71, esp. 670-71; idem, "The Development of Ambassadorial Relazioni," in Hale, Renaissance Venice, 174-96; Angelo Ventura, Nobilta e popolo nella sacieta veneta del '400 c '500, 2d ed. (Milan, 1993); J. Kenneth Hyde, "The Role of Diplomatic Correspondence and Reporting," in Hyde, Literacy and Its Uses: Studies on Late Medieval Italy, ed. Daniel P. Waley (Manchester, 1993), 217-59. 21. Giovanni Botero, Relatione della repubblica venetiana (Venice, 1595). 22. British Library, Department of Manuscripts, Sloan 697, fols. 1-32, 35-62; Add. 18, 660, fols. 137-46; Sloan 1834. 23. Cf. Ugo Tucci's intervention in the discussion in Beck et al., Venezia centro, l: l 37. 24. Kissling, "Venezia come centro di informazione," 101. 25. Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, 248-49. 26. Ibid., 269; cf. Hyde, "Role of Diplomatic Correspondence and Reporting," 244. 27. Preto, I senlizi secreti di Venezia, 381-96. 28. Giovanni K. Hassiotis, "Venezia e i domini veneziani tramite di informazioni sui Turchi per gli Spagnoli," in Beck et al., Venezia cenfro, 1: l 17-36; Peri in the discussion in ibid., 137. 29. Geoffrey Parker, "Maps and Ministers," in Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography as a Tool of Government in Early Modern Europe, ed. David Buisseret (Chicago, 1992), 125. 30. Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, 55-57. 31. Queller, Venetian Patriciate, 75. 32. Gerulaitis, Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice, 55. 33. Baschet, Les archives de Venise, 175-76. 34. T. C. Price Zimmermann, Paolo Giovio: The Historian and the Crisis of Renaissance Italy (Princeton, 1995), 171. 35. Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, 66, 79, 123-28. 36. Ibid., 433. 37. Emmanuele Cicogna, Delle inscrizioni veneziane, 6 vols. (Venice, 1824-53), 3:287-90. 38. John Marino, "Administrative Mapping in the Italian States," in Buisseret, Monarchs, Ministcrs, and Maps, 6. 39. Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, 168-77. 40. Baschet, Les archives de Venise, 167-78, 194. 41. Martin, Venice's Hidden Enemies, 26. 42. Grendler, Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 102-1 5; Martin, Venice's Hidden Enemies, 80-81. 43. Martin, Venice's Hidden Enemies, 67, 185-86. 44. Andrea Moschetti, "II Gobbo di Rialto," Nuavo Archivio Veneto 5 (1893): 1-85. 45. Nadia Lerz, ed., "II diario di Griso di Giovanni," Archivio Storico Italiano 422 (1959): 265; Hyde, ''Role of Diplomatic Correspondence and Reporting," 242; Francesca Trivellato, "La missi-
1034
one diplomatica a Venezia del fiorentino Giannozzo Manetti," Studi Veneziani, n.s., 28 (1994): 213. 46. Biagio Brugi, Gli scolari dello studio di Padova (Padua, 1905), 27. 47. Valerio Castronovo, "I primi sviluppi della stampa periodica fra Cinque e Seicento," in La stampa italiana dal '500 all '800, ed. Valerio Castronovo and Nicolo Tranfaglia (Bari, 1976), 9-10. 48. Preto, I semizi secreti di Venezia, 89. 49. Mario Infelise, "Professione reportista: Copisti e gazzettieri nella Venezia del '600," in Venezia: Itinerari per la storia della citta, ed. Stefano Gasparri, Giovanni Levi, and Pierandrea Moro (Bologna, 1997), 193-219; idem, "Le marche des informations a Venise au 17e siecle," in Gazettes et information politique sous l'ancien regime, ed. II. Duranton and Pierre Retat (SaintEtienne, 1999), 117-28. 50. Dorit Raines, "Office Seeking, Broglio, and the Pocket Political Guidebooks in '500 and '600 Venice," Studi Veneziani, n.s., 22 (1991): 137-94. 51. Alfred Morel-Fatio, Historiographie de Charles-Quint (Paris, 1913), 152. 52. Baschet, Les archifles de Venise, 348-52; Ugo Tucci, "Ranke and the Venetian Document Market," in Leopold von Ranke and the Shaping of the Historical Discipline, ed. Georg G. Iggers and James M. Powell (Syracuse, 1990), 100; Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, 66. 53. A. N. Amelot de la Houssaie, Histofre du governement de Venise (1676; reprint, Paris, 1685), preface. 54. Castronovo, "I primi sviluppi della stampa periodica fra Cinque e Seicento," 20. 55. Gerulaitis, Printing and Publishing in Fifteenth-Century Venice. 56. Grendler, Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 5-6; Martin, Venice's Hidden Enemies, 77. 57. Salvatore Bongi, Annali di Gabriel Giolito, 2 vols. (Rome, 1890). 58. Lowry, the World of Aldus Manutius, 18. 59. Bareggi, Il mestiere di scrillere. 60. Martin, Venice's Hidden Enemies, 78n. 61. Ezio Riondato et al., Trattati scientifici nel Venctofra ii XV e il XVI secolo (Viccnza, 1985), is less useful than the title suggests. 62. J. R. Hale, "Printing and the Military Culture of Renaissance Venice," in idem, Renaissance War Studies (London, 1983), 429-70. 63. Peter Burke, The Fortunes of the Courtier (Cambridge, 1995), 158-62. 64. Brian Richardson, Print Culture in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge, 1994); Burke, Fortunes of the Courtier; 42-43. 65. McNeill, Venice, 157. 66. E Geldner, Die deutsche lnkunabeldrucker; 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1968-70), 2:61-97. 67. Lucien Romier, "Lyon et le cosmopolitanisme," Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 11 (1949): 28-42; Peter Burke, Antwrerp: A Metropolis in Comparative Perspective (Antwerp, 1993); Guido Marnef, Antwerp in the Age of Reformation, trans. J. C. Grayson (Baltimore, 1996). 68. Burke, Antwerp. 69. Enrica Follieri, "Il libro greco per i greci nelle imprese editoriali romane e venezianc della prim a meta del Cinquecento," in Beck et al., Venezia centro, 2:48 3-508; Leandre Vranoussis, "Les imprimerics venitiennes et Jes premiers livres grecs," in ibid., 509-20. 70. Alessandro Pertusi, "Per la storia c le fonti delle prime grammatiche greche a stampa," Italia Medicvale e Umanistica 5 (1962): 323-24. Pertusi corrected the traditional date of 1486. 71. E. Mioni, "Callicrgi," in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 46 vols. to date (Rome, 1960-) 16:750-53.
1035
72. Catalogue of Seventeenth-Ce11t11ry Italian Books in the British Library, 3 vols. (London, 1986). 73. Linos Politis, "Venezia come centro della stampa e della diffusione della prima letteratura neoellenica," in Beck et al., Venezia rentro, 2:443-82; David Holton, ed., Literature and Society in Renaissance Crete (Cambridge, 1991), 4-6, 71-73. 74. Grendler, Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 90. 75. Alfredo Cioni, "Bamberg," in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, II:382-87; Grendler, Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 90-93, 255; Avraham Rosenthal, "Daniel Bamberg and His Talmud Editions," in Gli Elll'ci e Venezia, ed. Gaetano Cozzi (Milan, 1987), 375-416; Fausto Parente, "La chiesa e il Talmud," in Storia d'Italia: Anniali, ed. Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti, vol. 11 (Turin, 1996), 524-643, esp. 580-89. 76. Alfred E Johnson, Victor Scholderer, and D. A. Clarke, Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in Italy from 1465 to 1600 Now in the British Museum (London, 1958). 77. A. Nuovo, Alessandro Paganino (Padua, 1990). 78. Josip Badalic, Jugoslavia usque ad annum 1600 (Baden-Baden, 1959); cf. W. Schmitz, Sudslavische Buchdruck in Venedig (Giessen, 1977). 79. Antonio Rumeu de Armas, Alfonso de Ulloa: Introductor de la cultura espanola in Italia (Madrid, 1973); Bareggi, Il mestiere di scrivere. 80. Alfredo Cioni and Claudio Mutini, "Barezzi," in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 6:336-40. 81. Angela Caracciolo Arico, "Il nuovo mondo e l'umanesimo: Immagini e miti dell'editoria veneziana," in Arico, L'impatto della scoperta dell'America, 25. 82. Ambrosini, Paesi e mari ignoti, esp. 81n; Donatella Ferro, "Traduzioni di opere spagnole sulla scoperta dell'America nell'editoria veneziana del Cinquecento," in Arico, L'impatto della scoperta dell'America, 93-105. 83. Donald Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago, 1965), 163-64, 180-81; Massimo Donattini, "Giambattista Ramusio e le sue Navigationi," in Critica Storica 17 (1980): 55-100. 84. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe. 85. Johnson, Scholderer, and Clarke, Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in Italy from 1465 to 1600. 86. Ibid. 87. Stephane Yerasimos, "De la collection des voyages a l'histoire universelle: La Historia universale de' Turchi de Francesco Sansovino," Turcica 20 (r988): 19-41. 88. Kissling, "Venezia come centro di informazione." 89. Quoted in Horatio E Brown, The Venetian Printing Press (London, 1891), 218. 90. Paolo Ulvioni, "Stampatori e librai a Venezia nel '600," Architvio Veneta 54 (1977): 108; Mario Infelise, L'editoria veneziana nel '700 (Milan, 1989), 9-11. 91. McNeill, Venice. 92. Kuntz, Gullaume Postel; Marion L. Kuntz, ed., Postello, Venezia e il suo mondo (Florence, 1988), esp. 119-36. 93. Brown, Venetian Printing Press, 175; Tiziana Pesenti, "Stampatori e letterati," in Arnaldi and Stocchi, Storia della cultura veneta, vol. 4, pt. I: 103. 94. Lucien Febvre to Henri Pirenne, 31 May 1922 and 29 November 1927, in Bryce Lyon, The Birth of Annales History (Brussels, 1991), 95 and 38, respectively. 95. Quoted in John J. Murray, Antwerp in the Age of Plantin and Breughel (Norman, Okla., 1970), 43. 96. Marnef, Antwerp in the Age of Reformation, 3. 97. Silvano Garofalo, L'enciclopedismo italiano: Gianfrancesco Pivati (Ravenna, 1980). 1036
98. Infelise, L'editoria veneziana nel '700, 275-94. 99. Peter Burke, ed., Paolo Satpi (New York, 1967); idem, Venice and Amsterdam, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1994), 97. 100. Ottavio Cotogno, Compendio delle poste (Milan, 1623), 208-12, 454-55. 101. Giuseppe Miselli, Il burattino veridico (Rome, 1684), 172. 102. Grendler, Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 165-67, 285. 103. Quoted in Brown, Venetian Printing Press, 227. 104. Preto, I servizi secreti di Venezia, 173. 105. Ibid., 92. 106. Baykar Sivazliyan, "Venezia per I'oriente: La nascita del Ii bro armeno," in Armeni, Ebrei, Greci stampatori a Venezia (Venice, 1989), 23-38. 107. Ambrosini, Pacsi e mari ignoti, 144-50; Angela Nuovo, "L'editoria veneziana del XVII secolo e il problema americano," in Arico, L'impatto della scoperta dell'America, 175-86. 108. A. de Ferrari, "Coronelli," Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, 29:305-9; Teresa Colletta, "Vincenzo Coronelli," in Libra e incisionc a Venezia nei secoli XVII c XVIII, ed. Colletta et al. (Vicenza, 1988), 1-32. 109. G. Birago Avogadro, Historia Aji-icana (Venice, 1650); Giovanni Sagredo, Monarchi Ottomani (Venice, 1688). 110. Nicolao Manucci, Storia do Mogor; or Mogul India, trans. William Irvine (London, i907-8); Grossato, Navigatori e viaggiatori veneti, 93-102. 111. Grossato, Navigatori e viaggiatori veneti, 103-6. 112. Jean Georgelin, Venisc au siecle des lumieres (Paris, 1978).
1037
SECTION 4
Anna Melograni, The Illuminated Manuscript as a Commodity: Production, Consumption and the Cartolaio’s Role in Fifteenth-Century Italy However expensive, textiles, dress and metalware have traditionally been approached as aspects of Renaissance material culture, open to interpretations based on changing technologies, distribution routes and guild practices. Objects such as illuminated manuscripts, however, have usually been excluded from such investigations. Indeed, as the major change in the manufacture of books was the transition to printed material, there has been an unstated assumption that the labour involved in illuminated manuscripts was its primary characteristic and cost. The image of the scriptorium, a self-sufficient centre of manufacture located in the heart of a monastery producing illuminated manuscripts, remains a persistent part of our vision of the Middle Ages.1 In reality this method of production was outdated even by the thirteenth century, and by the Renaissance, making manuscripts in Italy was a craft linked closely to the city and urban spaces, where both religious and laymen copied and decorated texts in private houses or rented shops. This shift affected the very process by which illuminated manuscripts were produced; because of the multiplicity of tasks involved, and because the component parts of a manuscript were small and portable, those who commissioned a book could draw on higher levels of individual skills by moving the gatherings (fascicoli) of the manuscript within the city from one specialist to another. The key figure in this transformation, and the true protagonist of Renaissance manuscript production, was the cartolaio (also called cartaio), or stationer. The cartolaio was an artisan involved in making the book, as well as a seller of completed books, new and second-hand. As this chapter demonstrates, placing the cartolaio at the centre of production necessitates a re-evaluation of the role of the illuminator, whose function as an organizer of work was far less pronounced than we might assume. Further, looking at the various roles in the production of a manuscript allows us to examine their constituent costs and assess how this particular type of luxury good was priced.2 Sites of Production Research on medieval book production suggests that, as discussed above, we need to use the term 'scriptorium' with care.3 The true medieval scriptorium was linked to the Benedictine order, where the production of illuminated manuscripts, from the prepara1038
tion of parchment to the writing and the miniatures themselves, was an aspect of the duties of prayer and work emphasized in the monastic rule.4 Scriptoria like this did not disappear altogether; there were still numerous examples at the beginning of the fifteenth century, mainly in monasteries of the Benedictine order or in reformed monasteries such as those of the Olivetans and Camaldolesi,5 but the situation in the mendicant orders was very different. 6 There is little, if any, reference to organized scriptoria with appropriate facilities and materials in Franciscan or Dominican communities, whose focus was always on the world outside their own walls. This is not to say that Franciscan friars did not copy manuscripts. We have numerous testimonies of works signed by friars;7 and certainly there are extensive libraries that still survive in both Franciscan and Dominican monasteries, demonstrating that their members worked on transcriptions for both internal use and customers from outside. 8 Some were also illuminators,9 but manuscripts were not entirely executed within the heart of the community itself. Even in Benedictine monasteries, the chain of self-sufficient production was progressively broken from the start of the Trecento, a state of affairs that coincided with the beginning of an intensive interchange between religious communities and their urban surroundings. From this point onwards, illuminated manuscripts began to be produced in many different ways, often involving the support of an urban cartolaio. The case of the Franciscan monastery known as 'il Paradiso', located just outside Florence, demonstrates this approach in the fifteenth century. Here animal skins were sent out to the cartolaio in order to be worked, and payments to various stationers demonstrate that gatherings were not produced within the monastery.10 The cartolaio Giovanni di Michele Baldini purchased animal skins from the monks of Vallombrosa and the abbot of Pioppi, and another cartolaio, Vespasiano da Bisticci, bought goatskins from the Dominican friars of San Marco in Florence before returning them to the monastery in the form of fascicoli to be used by the scribes.11 The same was true for the illuminations: again the friars often turned to the cartolaio for the hiring of a suitable artist. In addition, as we shall see, when the volume was not destined for a monastery's own library, the cartolaio was often also responsible for liaising with its eventual owner. Thus, certainly by the fourteenth century, the cycle of production of a codex rarely took place exclusively within a scriptorium. Indeed, a few cases suggest that it was not uncommon for the friars to work on books outside their convent in houses that were rented specifically for that purpose by their institutional or individual patrons. The Franciscan Fra' Evangelista da Reggio, for example, who was involved in the decoration of the choir books of the cathedral of Ferrara in the second half of the fifteenth century, worked together with a layman, Jacopo Filippo Medici d'Argenta, 'in a room next to that of the Bishop', that is, in a room in the bishop's palace that was put at their 1039
disposal by the cathedral canons.12 This was not a genuine urban scriptorium, that is, a place organized specifically for making manuscripts in the spaces connected to the cathedral. The documentation clearly indicates that the many different specialists involved did not work alongside the illuminators in the same space. Indeed, the production of the Ferrarese choir books in the last quarter of the fifteenth century involved at least seven different categories of artisan, each of whom worked in a different location. GALLERY 12.1
These seven specialists contributed in a variety of ways to this liturgical series.13 The skins for the choir books were bought in Venice from German merchants ('todeschi' or 'de la Magna'). The work of preparing the parchment - shaving and softening the skin, treating it with pumice stone and then cutting the pages - was undertaken by the cathedral chapter's regular cartolaio, the Ferrarese master Francesco dal Zio, in his own shop. The pages were then passed on to the scribe, Arnbrogio da Cremona, for whom the canons had rented a house in the city. The miniaturist and scribe Maestro Andrea dalle Vieze was initially involved in the preparatory designs and in the laying of the gold leaf for the illuminated initials. The documents do not indicate where he 1040
worked, but it is clear that he did not share a room with the two main illuminators. The Franciscan friar Evangelista da Reggio worked, as we have seen, in a room in the bishop's palace along with Jacopo Filippo d'Argenta: they completed the decoration of the initials. The binding of the gatherings and the provision of leather for the covers was undertaken by the same cartolaio who had provided the parchment, who also affixed the clasps, bosses and metallic decorations. The ironmongery for the clasps and bosses was supplied by Maestro Alvise, while Maestro Giuliano Apolini, a goldsmith, crafted the silver coat of arms of the bishop for the front cover. It is crucial to note that the seven distinct specialists, divided among different ecclesiastical, monastic and lay urban spaces, alternated in the eight different phases of production. The cartolaio was the only individual to appear twice, at the beginning and at the end of this cycle, first preparing the parchment and then binding the actual volumes and providing the leather for the coverings. In this particular case he may not have been as important a figure in moving the gatherings from one master to the next, but this was often a role that the cartolaio undertook. The Cartolaio Although Albinia de la Mare's work on the cartolaio Vespasiano da Bisticci was groundbreaking, the wider role played by Italian stationers in manuscript production has not been fully examined.14 In spite of what the name suggests, the medieval cartolaio did not deal mainly with paper, but rather with parchment (Figure 31 ). This means that the frequent mention in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century documents of the term carta without any further specification (that is to say, vetulina, pecudina, edina, de vidello, de pecora or de cavrecto, depending on the animal) is usually related to calfskin, sheepskin and young goatskin parchment sheets. Paper is instead recorded as folio, carta bombasina, carta papyri, carta stracci or carta fina.15 Indeed, during the thirteenth century, the cartolai specialized in the treatment of parchment. As the statutes of the city of Bologna from 1250 to 1267 demonstrate, they already had a guild and were mentioned at a very early stage along with the tanners. This is because cartolai belonged to the leather guild, as did the shoemakers and workers of green leather and gloves.16 The Bolognese guilds were evidently based on groups of artisans who worked the same kind of raw materials. More than a century later - as we learn from the statutes of 1389 - the producers of paper joined the guild of the apothecaries (along with the wax sellers). 17 n Florence, the cartolai were registered in the Arte dei Medici e degli Speziali (Guild of Physicians and Apothecaries), as were the illuminators.18 The guild's statutes of 1349 have a specific chapter devoted to the cartolai's duties (Chapter LXXVI 'Ache sono tenuti e cartolai'), which are regulated with strict control by the 'consoli della detta arte' who oversee the preparation of parchment, gatherings for liturgical 1041
books and quaderni ( quires of eight leaves) for legal and accounts manuscripts. The consoli also forbid the replacement of a book's quires in absence of the guild's control.19 In other Italian cities, cartolai were not strong enough politically to organize a guild as early as in Bologna or Florence. In Milan, for instance, the statutes were approved only in 1495, along with the foundation of a schola dedicated to the Virgin Mary. 20 GALLERY 12.2
The control over work with written text which is evident in the Florentine statutes regarding the cartolai was familiar to the stationari, a category of bookseller connected with the universities and responsible for the purchase of scholastic books and the loan of peciae.21 Although the different professions of bookseller were closely related, there is a distinction between the stationarius (the university bookseller), the cartularius (the stationer), the librarius and the bibliopola (both booksellers). The order in which they are listed reflects the chronological development of these professions, going from the medieval university bookseller to the printer's shop.22 As with other medieval professions, the shops of cartolai were almost always grouped together in the same area or street within a given town. In Rome they were in the neighbourhood known as Parione.23 In Naples they were located in the street that is still called San Biagio dei Librai today,24 and Via dei Libri was also the name used in 1042
Bologna, where the shops were located close to the university.25 In Venice cartolai were near the Rialto and Santa Maria Formosa,26 and in Genoa in Carubeo Fili (today Vico del Filo ).27 For Milan the documentation is unfortunately very poor, but the area around the Broletto is sometimes mentioned.28 In Florence the booksellers were to be found in the street by the Palazzo del Podesta (the Bargello ), known as Via dei Librai ( now Via del Proconsolo), and the cartolai were in Via del Palagio (now Via Ghibellina).29 The shops of the Florentine cartolai were for the most part the property of the Badia Fiorentina, which rented out these spaces.30 A sixteenth-century print depicts a number of the main artisanal activities and shows the proximity of the booksellers, the bibliopola, to the abbey (Figure 32).31 The surviving inventories of the shops of two Florentine cartolai, compiled fifty years apart (in 1426 and 1476), contain rare, detailed descriptions of the workshop, contents and tools of their trade.32 From these we can trace the move of the cartolaio from a strictly technical role to one with more responsibility for the actual production of manuscripts. The greatest exponent of this development was Vespasiano da Bisticci, memorialized as a libraio in the last phase of his career ('principe omnium librariorum florentinorum', as the Florentine copyist Gherardo del Ciriagio calls him).33 The extensive correspondence between Vespasiano and his customers demonstrates that he did not simply supervise the creation of illuminated books as they went through their different phases of production.34 One of his primary responsibilities was in 'research and development': he was to find rare texts or particularly desirable translations for his clients. His role as an intermediary, in this sense, needs no further underlining. That Vespasiano benefited from some of the most expensive investments in fifteenthcentury library collection is demonstrated by the unusually large amount of work that he received:35 he was intimately involved in the creation of some of the most important libraries of the period, in particular the rich collection for Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, and those commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici the Elder for the Dominican monastery of San Marco in Florence and the Badia Fiesolana.36 Vespasiano clearly profited financially from his work. He was able to invest in books and to purchase a family villa in Antella (the place where he retired to write his Lives), a property which in 1480 seems to have provided him with a high annual income.37 This was more than a site for villeggiatura, and, if he used the skins from the sheep raised in this productive farm instead of buying them elsewhere, he could cut production costs. Albania de le Mare made this suggestion in the case of the cartolaio Giovani di Michele Baldini. Vapsasiano was responsible for the entire cycle of production of an illuminated manuscript, from the translation of the text to the final binding of the volume. This has been well investigated,39 but the most effective description remains the snapshot 1043
Vespasiano himself gives in a letter to Piero de’ Medici (1458) where he recounts that, while a copy of Livy was finished and ready for its cover (the leather would have been supplied by Cafaggiolo, the Medici estate), the illumination of a two-volume Pliny was almost complete; at the same time, to copy some of the Lives by Plutarch, he was waiting for 'questi benedetti exenpri' ( these blessed exemplars) from Ferrara that Guarino had promised to send, and the translation of the Life of Agis and Cleomenes was at last being undertaken by Alamanno Rinuccini.40 As we understand from the letter, upon the completion of the working of the parchment and the transcription of the text - for which Vespasiano employed scribes41 as his own handwriting was poor - he distributed the unfinished manuscripts to different illuminators for the third phase of production. At this final stage, his associate Michele di Giovanni, recently recognized as Michele di Giovanni Guarducci, took charge.42 Michele was a binder recorded as a legatore. Vespasiano's shop inventory has not been found, but it is known that, apart from working on commission, he also rented a shop from the Badia with his conpagnio Michele; the shop was divided into two large connected rooms ('due botteghe che l'una entra nell'altra') 43 containing books that were available for direct sale to the public. These volumes often came from pre-existing collections purchased by the cartolaio44 or were newly produced books that had not yet been sold. Some of these latter items may have been produced for the open market or, more likely, for buyers who changed their minds. Many have been identified by Albinia de la Mare in the Urbinate collection of the Vatican Library, formed from the Montefeltro library. These books were produced by Vespasiano's workshop before Federico became Duke of Urbino, in other words, before his ducal commission for the Urbino library. He must have purchased some books from Vespasiano's 'ready-made' collection.45 Large-scale book production such as Vespasiano's commissions from Cosimo de' Medici and Federico da Montefeltro was organized in various ways. The clearest example of what we might term serial production is undoubtedly that of the library of San Francesco in Cesena ( today the Biblioteca Malatestiana), built under Malatesta Novello, with its over 120 manuscripts created for the library in about fifteen years, from 1450 to 1465.46 The intensive nature of the production is evident from the way in which the scribes worked (as discussed by Albinia de la Mare),47 and from the consistent, rather standardized use of ornamental vine-stem initials (bianchi girari), based on the humanistic Florentine model and on the Ferrarese manuscripts of Leonello d'Este.48 It can also be seen through technical analysis in a study49 comparing the distinctive preparation of the parchment of eighty fifteenth-century codices from the Biblioteca Malatestiana with fifty-six fourteenth-century Bolognese manuscripts destined for university use.50 The resulting analysis showed several differences due to the higher 1044
quality of the university production (for instance in the choice of the parchment), yet there were many common features in the standardized gathering preparation which caused the authors to call Cesena's production 'institutionalized'.51 In other words, it seems probable that the gatherings of the volumes made for the new public library that Malatesta Novello wished to donate to his city were undertaken in a single scriptorium and their characteristics were similar to those of the peciae used in producing university texts in Bologna. In contrast, the transcriptions and copies for which Vespasiano was responsible rarely present any such homogeneity.52 This suggests that only a small number of his copyists worked directly for him and that the majority of the work was sub-contracted. It also explains why so few manuscripts carry his personal imprint.53 Giuseppe Cagni has suggested that there was a clear economic motive for this system, for it allowed Vespasiano to declare to the tax officials only that part of the work which was directly undertaken in his shop,54 and it is true that his Catasto records do not seem to correspond to what we know about his income from other sources. Moreover, scribes who are documented as having worked for him often denied doing so. A good example is provided by the case of Gherardo del Ciriagio. It is likely that all thirty-one surviving manuscripts signed by him were executed after 1451, a date at which he nevertheless declared in his Catasto return: 'I Gherardo do not trade, nor do I work in any workshop. It is true that I used to copy manuscripts for my own amusement, even though I did not earn very much. But because my eyesight deteriorated I gave it up: 55 The role of the cartolaio was clearly that of a coordinator of the work of others. When the supervisor of the phases of production was not the cartolaio, it was usually the patron or his designated agent. In the case of liturgical choir books, for example, the role was undertaken by the deputies of the Fabbrica del Duomo in any city, or by the canons themselves. The illuminator and the costs of illumination What precisely was the role of the illuminator? In the production of manuscripts, the work of the miniaturist was essentially limited to the decoration. This job itself was often sub-divided among a range of different specialists. The illuminator coordinated the work of collaborators to whom he delegated the laying on of colours in the background of the initials, the application of gold leaf and the execution of the decorative elements on the margins of the pages and on the minor initials. It is important to stress, however, that the decoration of the manuscripts was only one of the many phases of production and by no means always the most expensive.56 Parchment and its preparation, transcription and illumination were all fundamental elements of a manuscript's final cost. 1045
Table 5 gives an idea of the cost of four different kinds of manuscript from a single shop: a missal, a breviary, a book of hours, and a copy of Donatus's grammar. The costs are listed in the diary (or liber rationis) that the stationer Bartolomeo Lupoto wrote about his shop's activity in Genoa between 1448 and 1456.57 The data refer to manuscripts with average or even poor decoration and, while the sample is small, it allows for a couple of initial conclusions: first, the highest cost is always that of transcription; and second, this cost is usually half of the final cost of the book. (This proportion does not change unless the manuscript is highly illuminated, in which case the final price of a missal might be in the region of 80 to 100 lire.) 58 Table 6 provides a breakdown of the cost of a Ferrarese liturgical choir book from the last quarter of the fifteenth century made of sixteen quires or quatemioni (for a total of sixty-four charte, measuring 790 x 560 mm) (Figures 33-5).59 The cost of acquiring and preparing the parchment itself represents 23.6% of the total. 60 The cost of the transcription of the text and the musical notation, which were often charged as two different tasks,61 amounted to 26% of the total.62 Most significantly, the remaining 48.2% corresponds to the cost of the decoration, which had the highest price. 63 The expense of covers and metalwork was minimal, only 2.2% of tl1e total. 64 Interestingly, these data show that, in the case of a volume in a large-scale format, such as a liturgical d1oir book, the percentage spent on parchment was significantly greater than in the case of a small devotional book of hours. Conversely, transcription costs for an antiphonary are far less than those for a missal, where, although the format is smaller, the amount of text to be copied is far greater. For the illumination itself, the price of each type of initial was defined in an agreement between the chapter and the illuminator, such as the document drawn up between the canons of Ferrara's cathedral and the artists charged with the choir books. Table 7 offers an idea of the costs of different types of illuminated initials. 65 The documents indicate that the height of these initials was calculated according to the number of lines of adjacent text and, in the case of musical scores, by the number of adjacent four-line staves (tetragrammi). The lowest price, 2 soldi, was for small initials with gold and decorative patterns, whereas the highest, 9 lire, was for large initials with figures. The principio, a full decorated page at 25 lire, was calculated separately. 66 These prices seem to have been applied regardless of the reputation or previous career of the illuminators involved, in marked contrast to the situation discussed in O'Malley's essay on Perugino (chapter 5). It is particularly interesting to note that when Taddeo Crivelli, the favoured illuminator of Borso d'Este, interrupted his work on the choir books of San Petronio in Bologna, 67 the illuminator who replaced him, Martino da Modena, undertook to finish the books under the same conditions as those of Crivelli and was even better paid (see Table 8). This suggests that, at least for the fabbrica of 1046
San Petronio, the two artists were interchangeable and the payment was for the product rather than for the quality of the decoration. 68 In this, as in many other cases, the price of the work was based on standard rates and does not seem to have depended on the greater or lesser fame of the artist involved. This is surprising, particularly in this instance, given Crivelli's reputation and the fact that, only ten years before, the painter had worked on a book outstanding in every sense of the word, including its expense: the two-volume Bible of Borso d'Este,69 whose total cost can be calculated at 5,589 lire marchesane, 19 soldi and 6 denari.70 The cost of this Bible, so frequently cited, is in fact highly unusual. To give an idea of the true value, it is worth remembering some of the other known prices of the period in Ferrara. An illuminated book of hours cost about 20 lire marchesane,71 and a choir book for the cathedral of that city around 138 lire.72 For the illuminations of Borso's breviary, Guglielmo Giraldi received 760 lire,73 whereas the organ doors of the cathedral of Ferrara executed by Cosme Tura in 1469 came to 111 lire 74 and the salary of a professor of the Studio Ferrarese came to 200 lire a year. 75 The annual rent of the house used by the two illuminators in central Ferrara was 50 lire.76 In another context, such as Venice in 1476, a woman could wear a dress with ornaments, jewels and accessories worth up to 1,000 ducats, which computes to about 2,800 lire marchesane, not counting the necessary cloth.77 Here we find nothing to compare with the 5,589 lire marchesane spent by the duke on his remarkable manuscript. Completed in six years, the Bible has a total of 604 pages, at an average cost of 3 lire 15 soldi per page for the illumination. 78 While this price may seem extraordinary, given that the rich decoration that appears on every page is on a scale similar to what we find as frontispieces in other manuscripts, a rate of just under 4 lire per page does not seem exorbitant. The image (Figure 36) suggests the complexity and richness of this manuscript's decoration. The volume was first protected by a layer of cloth and kept in a box.79 The cover was accomplished only in 1491 when silver metalwork (furnimenti in argento) was applied to the 'Bibia bella', which was by then parted into two volumes.80 Yet even if the cost was justified by the work involved, it remains out of line with that of other manuscripts and, as far as we know, is not comparable to any other example. Charles Rosenberg must be right in suggesting this commission was a demonstrable act of magnificence for Borso d'Este. As Shepherd has shown in chapter 2, magnificence at court could be shown by expenditure on objects for private as well as for public use, and it is significant that Borso took the Bible with him to Rome in 1471 when he was given the title of Duke of Ferrara by Pope Paul II. The archival documentation relating to the production of Borso's Bible is also unusually detailed. Among the many pieces of evidence, the contract negotiated between 1047
the two illuminators, Franco <lei Russi and Taddeo Crivelli, has survived.81 It serves to underline the exceptional nature of the situation. The price and timing of the work was decided from the start. In fact, the duke requested that the artists produce a sample set of pages, a quintern, that was valued at 75 lire marchesane. The other fifty-nine gatherings would cost the same. We know that Borso himself supervised and approved each fascicule, and that only after his approval had been obtained would the illuminators receive the 75 lire from Galeotto dell'Assassino, the duke's camerlengo. The parchment was acquired by one of the cathedral's canons, Giovanni della Badia, in Bologna. The copyist, Paolo Marone, had no direct relationship with the illuminators. As the work progressed, he brought the gatherings that he had written ( each gathering was valued at 6 lire) to the duke's camerario, Piero Schivetto, who then passed them on to the illuminators. In addition, the duke rented a room for the illuminators at a cost of 50 lire a year, 'so they could illuminate the Bible more easily'.82 On this occasion, Taddeo Crivelli and Franco dei Russi established a partnership, a societa, and received 200 lire as an advance from the duke. It is impossible to overemphasize just how unusual these arrangements were, as the two artists were assisted by numerous other illuminators, to whom they delegated considerable amounts of work. The documents cite a total of at least eleven illuminators working on the project, none of whom were in direct contact with the duke himself, and whose individual hands cannot always be discerned. In addition, we know that at least two other illuminators, not mentioned in the documents, Girolamo da Cremona and Guglielmo Giraldi, were also involved. As a result of her study on the Bible's illuminators, Federica Toniolo has identified a total of nineteen artists.83 Table 9 details the individual cost of the different parts of Borso's Bible.84 The cost of the decoration (4,924 lire 11 soldi 6 denari) made up 88.1% of the total cost of the work. In this case, a truly exceptional one, the role of the painters was highly privileged from the moment it was decided that the work needed to surpass the standards of the period. Neither painter's work ever reached this level again, nor was their treatment by later patrons, such as Federico da Montefeltro, ever this generous. As we have seen, when Crivelli later began to work on the liturgical books of San Petronio in Bologna, he had to accept the going rate. The conclusions emerging from this work are twofold. The first has to do with the question of cost. Unless a manuscript contained a high level of decoration the greatest cost was that of the transcription of the text itself. This aspect could account for up to half of the total cost of the book. It was only when a book had a high proportion of decoration, as in the case of the Ferrarese choir books or the Breviary of Borsa, and above all - the outstanding Bible of the duke, that the greatest component cost became
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that of the illuminations. It is crucial to note, however, that illuminators were not necessarily the highest-paid craftsmen on book projects. The second consideration is related to production. Even for illuminated manuscripts, which were essentially luxury products, there was a manufacture process comparable with that of other goods, such as textiles.85 It was not the output of a single artist but the product of a group of specialists with the cartolaio acting as the central organizing personality. He was the manager of book production, coordinating the efforts of specialists such as illuminators, binders and goldsmiths. Manufacture under his supervision was characterized by a plurality of hands and the mobility of the various phases of production.86 The role of the illuminator was therefore not an isolated one. It was rooted in the urban context, where the artist was one among many players in the production of a manuscript, and prices charged for the decoration often reflected the work involved more than the personal reputation of a single master. Notes 1. George Haven Putnam, Books and their Makers During the Middle Ages, New York, 1896; and Jean Leclerq, Cultura umanistica e desiderio di Dio: studio sulla letteratura monastica del Medio Evo, Florence, 1965, pp. 159-62. 2. In writing this chapter I am in debt to Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work, New Haven, 1992. 3. Guglielmo Cavallo, 'Dalio scriptorium senza biblioteca alla biblioteca senza scriptorium', in Dall'eremo al cenobio: la civilta monastica in Italia dalle origini all'eta di Dante, Milan, 1987, pp. 331-422. 4. Leclerq, 1965, pp. 16 and 159-62; Mario Rotta, 'Lo scriptorium monastico', in Codici liturgici miniati dei Benedettini in Toscana, Campi Bisenzio, Florence, 1982, pp. 47-73; Francesco Magistrale, 'La scuola monastica: dall'istruzione elementare alla lettura dei classici', in Mariano Dell'Omo, ed., Virgilio e ii chiostro: manoscritti di autori classici e civilta monastica, exhibition catalogue (Montecassino Abbey, 8 July - 8 December 1996), Rome, 1996, pp. 17-24. Still fundamental is the article first published in 1959 by Giorgio Cencetti, 'Scritture e circolazione libraria nei monasteri benedettini', in Guglielmo Cavallo, ed., Libri e lettori nel Medioevo: guida storica e critica, Bari, 1983, pp. 73-97; and also Walter Horn and Ernest Born, The Medieval Monastery as a Setting for the Production of Manuscripts', Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, 44 (1986), pp. 16-47. 5. The links between the scriptoria of the Camaldolese order can be demonstrated by the exchange of iconographic models and the movement of the illuminators themselves. An interesting case is the exchange between the Florentine monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli and those of San Micl1ele and San Mattia in Murano, near Venice. See Giordana Canova Mariani, 'Graduale', in Arte in Lombardia tra Gotico e Rinascimento, Milan, 1988, pp. 232-9, n. 65; Gaudenz Freuler, 'Presenze artisticl1e toscane a Venezia alla fine del Trecento: Io scriptorium <lei camaldolesi e dei domenicani', in La pittura nel Veneto: il Trecento, 2 vols, Milan, 1992, II, pp. 480-502; and Lucia Merolla, 'Un corale di San Michele di Murano', Nuovi annali della Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari, 11 (1997), pp. 111-27. 6. Cavallo, 1987, pp. 399-412; Nicoletta Giove Marchioli, 'I protagonisti dei libro: gli ordini mendicanti', in Giordana Canova Mariani and Paola Ferraro Vettore, eds, Calligrafia di Dio: la minia-
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tura celebra la parola, exhibition catalogue (Praglia Abbey, 17 April - 17 July 1999), Modena, 1999, pp. 51-7. 7. Benedictins du Bouveret, Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux des origines au XVI siecle, 6 vols, Freibourg, 1965-82. 8. Cesare Cenci OFM, 'Biblioteche e bibliofili francescani a tutto il secolo XV', Picenum seraphicum, 8 (1971 ), pp. 68-80; Kenneth W. Humphreys, The Library of the Franciscans of Siena in the Late Fifteenth Century, Amsterdam, 1978; Celestino Piana OFM, 'Codici medioevali e rinascimentali nel convento di S. Antonio a Bologna', Xenia medii aevi historiam illustrantia Thomae Kaeppeli O.P., Rome, 1978 (Storia e letteratura, 142), II, pp. 567-606; Mirella Ferrari, 'Per una storia delle biblioteche francescane a Milano nel medioevo e nell'umanesimo', AFH, 72 (1979), pp. 429-64; Diego Ciccarelli, ed., La circolazione libraria tra i Francescani di Sicilia, 2 vols, Palermo, 1990; Thomas Kaeppeli, 'Antiche biblioteche domenicane in Italia', APP, 36 (1966), pp. 5-80; Mirella Ferrari, 'Delle antiche biblioteche domenicane a Milano: codici superstiti nell'Ambrosiana', Ricerche storiche sulla Chiesa Ambrosiana, 7 (1978-79) (Archivio Ambrosiano, 35), pp. 170-97; Letizia Pellegrini, I manoscritti dei Predicatori, Rome, 1999; and Emilio Panella OP, 'Libri della provincia romana dei Predicatori ad uso dei frati (secoli XIII-XV)', in Giuseppe Lombardi and Donatella Nebbiai Daila Guarda, eds, Libri, lettori e biblioteche dell'Italia medievale (secoli IX-XV): fonti, testi, utilizzazione del libro. Atti della tavola rotonda italo-francese, Roma, 7-8 marzo 1997, Paris, 2000, pp. 277-300. 9. One example among others is the Lombard illuminator Fra' Antonio da Monza. See Jonathan J. G. Alexander, ed., The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination 1450-1550, exhibition catalogue (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 27 October 1994 - 22 January 1995), Munich and New York, 1994, p. 226, n. 119. 10. Renato Piattoli, 'Un capitolo di storia dell'arte Iibraria ai primi <lei Quattrocento: rapporti tra il monastero fiorentino de! Paradiso e J'ordine francescano', SF, 1 (1932), pp. 1-21, pp. 14 and 16. 11. Albinia de la Mare, 'The Shop of a Florentine "cartolaio" in 1426', in Berta Maracchi Biagiarelli and Dennis E. Rhodes, eds, Studi offerti a Roberto Ridolfi, Florence, 1973, pp. 237-48, at 242; and Anna Melograni, 'Manuscript Materials: Cost and Market of Parchment in Renaissance Italy', in Joanna Cannon, Jo Kirby and Susie Nash, eds, European 'Irade in Painters' Materials to 1700, London: The Courtauld Institute of Art and The National Gallery, 11-12 February 2005, London (forthcoming). 12. '... esendo in la chamera dove Ii diti aminia al presente da Jadi de Monsignor M. Io Vescovo', quoted in Giuseppe Antonelli, 'Documenti risguardanti i libri corali de! duomo di Ferrara', in Michelangelo Gualandi, ed., Memorie originali italiane 1iguardanti le belle arti, Bologna, 1845, pp. 153-75, at 155, and Hermann J. Hermann, La miniatura estense, ed. Federica Toniolo, Modena, 1994, p. 273, n. 252. 13. Anna Melograni, 'La miniatura e i suoi costi. I corali tardo quattrocenteschi della cattedrale di Ferrara: un'analisi <lei documenti, dei materiali e della mano d'opera', Bollettino d'arte, 90 (2005), pp. 151-80. 14. Dennis E. Rhodes, 'Albinia de Ia Mare, maestra di manoscritti', La bibliofilia, 104 (2002), pp. 209-18. On Vespasiano see the following articles by Albinia C. de la Mare: 'Vespasiano da Bisticci and Gray', JWCI, 20 (1957), pp. 174-6; 'Vespasiano da Bisticci and the Florentine Manuscripts of Robert Flemmyng in Lincoln College', Lincoln College Record, Oxford, 1962-63, pp. 7-16; 'Cosimo and his Books', in Francis Ames-Lewis, ed., Cosimo 'il Vecchio' de' Medici 1389-1464: Essays in Commemoration of the 600th Anniversary of Cosimo de Medici's Birth, Oxford, 1992, pp. 115-56; and 'Vespasiano da Bisticci as Producer of Classical Manuscripts in Fifteenth-Century Florence', in Claudine A. Chavannes-Mazel and Margaret M. Smith, eds, Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics: Production and Use. Proceedings of the Seminar in the History of the Book 1050
to 1500, Leiden 1993, Los Altos Hills, CA, 1996, pp. 167-208. See also Albinia de la Mare, 'Vespasiano da Bisticci: Historian and Bookseller', Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1965, 2 vols; and for comparative purposes the detailed study of Parisian book production as seen in Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and their Mahers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, 2 vols, Tumhout, 2000, with bibliography. For Italy, see Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Cartolai, Illuminators and Printers in Fifteenth-Century Italy: The Evidence of the Ripoli Press, Los Angeles, 1988, pp. 67-8. 15. Marilena Maniaci, Terrninologia del libro manoscritto, Milan, 1998, pp. 41-3. 16. Gina Fasoli, 'Le compagnie delle arti a Bologna fino al principio del secolo XV', L'archiginnasio: bullettino della biblioteca comunale di Bologna, 30 (1935), pp. 237-80, and 31 (1936), pp. 5680. For tanners and the manufacture of leather, see also Giuseppe Bravo, Storia del cuoio e dell'arte conciaria, Turin, 1964; Marco Tangheroni, 'Le arti de! cuoio', in Franco Franceschi and Gloria Fossi, eds, Arti fiorentine: la grande storia dell'artigianato, I: II Medioevo, Florence, 1998, pp. 214-34; Chiara Merucci, 'II cuoio', in Corrado Matese, ed., I supporti nelle arti pittoriclie: storia, tecnica, restauro, 2 vols, Milan, 1990, II, pp. 225-76; and Sergio Gensini, ed., II cuoio e le pelli in Toscana: produzione e mercato nel tardomedioevo e nell'etii modema. Incontro di studio, San Miniato, 21-22 febbraio 1998, Pisa, 2000. 17. Fasoli, 1935, p. 70. 18. Raffaele Ciasca, ed., Statuti dell'arte dei medici e speziali, Florence, 1922; and Gustavo Bertoli, 'Librai, cartolai e ambulanti immatricolati nell'arte dei Medici e speziali di Firenze dal 1490 al 1600', La bibliofilia, 94 (1922), pp. 125-64, pp. 227-62. 19. Ciasca, 1922, pp. 189-190. 20. Emilio Motta, 'Dei cartai milanesi nella seconda meta de! XV secolo e dei loro statuti', Il bibliofilo, 8 (1887), pp. 108-9, and Mirella Ferrari, 'Note di cartari milanesi nel Quattrocento', in Tradition und Wertung: Festschrift fur Franz Brunholzl zum 65 Geburtstag, Sigmaringen, 1989, pp. 307-18. 21. Miroslav Bohaeek, 'Nuova fonte per la storia degli stazionari bolognesi', Studia Gratiana, 9 (1966), pp. 407-60. See also n. 22 below. 22. Silvia Rizzo, Il Jessica filologico degli umanisti, Rome, 1973 (Sussidi eruditi, 26). For the specific professions, see Ludovico Frati, 'Gli stazionari bolognesi nel Medio Evo', ASI, 45 (1910), pp. 380-90; Leonard E. Boyle OP, 'Peciae, Apopeciae, and a Toronto Manuscript of the Sententia Libri Ethicorum of Aquinas', in Peter Ganz, ed., The Role of the Boole in Medieval Culture: Oxford, Intemational Symposium, Sept. 26 - Oct. 1, 1982, 2 vols, Tumhout, 1986, I, pp. 71-82; Louis J. Bataillon, Bertrand G. Guyot and Richard H. Rouse,e ds, La Production du livre universitaire au Mayen Age. Exemplar et pecia: actes du symposium tenu au Collegio San Bonaventura di Grottafe1Tata en mai 1983, Paris, 1988; and Sigfred Taubert, Bibliopola: Bilder und Texte aus der Welt des Buchhandels, 2 vols, Hamburg, 1966. 23. Paolo Cherubini, 'Note sul commercio librario a Roma nel '400', Studi romani, 33 (1985), pp. 217-18; see also Paolo Cherubini, Anna Esposito, Anna Modigliani and Paola Scarcia Piacentini, 'II costo de! libro', in Massimo Miglio, ed., Scrittura, biblioteche a stampa a Roma nel Quattrocento: atti del 2 seminario, 6-8 maggio 1982, Vatican City, 1983, pp. 323-553 (in particular 'Indice dei cartolai attivi a Roma', pp. 431-45). 24. Giovanni Bresciano and Mariano Fava, 'I librai ed i cartai di Napoli nel Rinascimento', Archivio storico per le province napoletane, 4 (1918), pp. 89-104 and 253-70, at 101-2; 6 (1920), pp. 228-50; and 20 (1934), pp. 324-73, at 338; and Carlo De Frede, 'Sul commercio dei libri a Napoli nella prima eta della stampa', Bollettino dell'Istituto di Patologia del Libra, 14 (1955), nos 1-2, pp. 62-78.
1051
25. Aldo Adversi, 'Libri, librai e biblioteche a Bologna attraverso i secoli', Culta Bononia, 6 (1974), pp. 5-27, at 22 (Via dei Libri is today part of Via Farini). 26. Susan Connell, 'Books and their Owners in Venice 1345-1480', JWCI, 35 (1972), pp. 163-86, p. 164. 27. Geo Pistarino, Bartolomeo Lupoto e l'arte libraria a Genova nel Quattrocento, Genoa, 1961,p.x. 28. Motta, 1887, p. 108, mentions the shop of Bernardo Bugato, 'cartarius ducalis' in 1467; Caterina Santoro, 'Appunti e documenti per una storia dei cartari milanesi', in Maracchi Biagiarelli and Rhodes, eds, 1973, pp. 421-6; Ferrari, 1989, p. 313, recalls the shop of Donino da Pietrasanta (1394); and Ada Grossi, 'Dell'attivita scrittoria nella piazza del duomo di Milano nel quattrocento e delle suppliche di eta viscontea', Aevum, 70 (1996), pp. 273-83. For the paper market see Luisa Chiappa Mauri, 'Catta e cartai a Milano nel secolo XV', Nuova rivista storica, 71 (1987), pp. 126. 29. Alessandro Guidotti, 'Jndagini su botteghe di cartolai e miniatori a Firenze nel XV secolo', in Emanuela Sesti, ed., La miniatura italiana tra Gotico e Rinascimento: atti del II congresso di storia della miniatura italiana, Cortona, 24-26 settembre 1982, 2 vols, Florence, 1985, II, pp. 473507. 30. See the many examples mentioned by Mirella Levi D'Ancona, Miniatura e miniatori a Firenze dal XIV al XVI secolo: documenti per la storia della miniatura, Florence, 1962. 31. First published in Venice in 1520 by Johann Host (Congestorium artificiose memorie). See Angela Nuovo and Ennio Sandal, II libro nell'Italia del Rinascimento, Brescia, 1998, p. 84. 32. Giuseppe Sergio Martini, 'La bottega di un cartolaio fiorentino della seconda meta del Quattrocento: Nuovi contributi biografici intorno a Gherardo e Monte di Giovanni', La bibliofilia, supplement, 58 (1956), pp. 5-82; and de la Mare, 1973, pp. 237-48. 33. See the colophon of MS Urb. lat. 1314 in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, in Luigi Michelini Tocci, 'La formazione della Biblioteca di Federico da Montefeltro: codici contemporanei e libri a stampa', in Giorgio Cerboni Baiardi, Giorgio Chittolini and Piero Floriani, eds, Federico di Montefeltro, lo stato, le arti, la wltura, III: La cultura, Rome, 1986, pp. 9-18, p. 12. 34. Giuseppe M. Cagni, Vespasiano da Bisticci e ii suo epistolario, Rome, 1969. 35. Ibid., pp. 52-80. 36. Berthold L. Ullman and Philip A. Stadter, The Public Library of Renaissance Florence: Niccolo Niccoli, Cosimo de Medici and the Libran' of San Marco, Padua, 1972; Eugenio Garin, La biblioteca di San Marco, Florence, 1999; Annarosa Garzelli, 'Note su artisti nell'orbita dei primi Medici: individuazione e congetture dai libri di pagamento della Badia fiesolana (1440-1485)', Studi medioevali, 26 (1985), pp. 435-82; Donatella Coppini and Mariangela Regoliosi, eds, Gli umanisti e Agostino: codici in mostra, exhibition catalogue (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, 13 December 2001 - 17 March 2002), Florence, 2001; and the articles in Cerboni Baiardi, Chittolini and Floriani, eds, 1986. It is also worth reading what Vespasiano wrote himself on these libraries: Vespasiano da Bisticci, Le vite, ed. Aulo Greco, 2 vols, Florence, 1970-76, I, pp. 355416, and II, pp. 167-211. 37. Cagni, 1969, p. 36, n. 6. 38. De la Mare, 1973, pp. 242 and 243, no. 12. 39. See n. 14. 40. Cagni, 1969, pp. 139-40, n. 16. 41. Berthold L. Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script, Rome, 1960, pp. 131-2. 42. Alessandro Guidotti, 'Nuovi documenti su Vespasiano da Bisticci, la sua bottega e la sua famiglia', in Cerboni Baiardi, Chittolini and Floriani, eds, 1986, pp. 97-111. Michele Guarducci had 1052
been already recognized by Albinia de la Mare, in her unpublished dissertation, 1965, I, pp. 1213. 43. Guidotti, 1986, p. 100, n. 5. Alamanno Rinuccini, in one of his letters which effectively presents the cultural atmosphere around Vespasiano's activity, recalls a similar shop: 'apud librariam Vespasiani nostri tabemam coeuntes' (Lettere ed orazioni, ed. Vito R. Giustiniani, Florence, 1953, p. 11). 44. When Vespasiano in 1445 (and not 1447 as Cagni suggests) went to Lucca to buy books from the Franciscan library for San Marco's library, he kept some of the duplicates for himself. See de la Mare, 1965, I, p. 70, and II, pp. 298-9, doc. 18; Cagni, 1969, p. 53; both scholars refer to Eugenio Lazzareschi, 'Relazioni di Cosimo de' Medici con la Signoria di Lucca', La Rinascita, 3 (1940), pp. 187-201. 45. Albinia C. de la Mare, 'Vespasiano da Bisticci e i copisti fiorentini di Federico', in Cerboni Baiardi, Chittolini and Floriani, eds, 1986, pp. 81-96, at 81 and 92. 46. Augusto Campana, 'Biblioteche della provincia di Forli', in Domenico Fava, ed., Tesori delle biblioteche d'Italia: Emilia Romagna, Milan, 1932, pp. 83-110, at 86-8; Augusto Campana, 'Origine, forrnazione e vicende della Biblioteca Malatestiana', Accademie e bibiioteche d'Italia, 21 (1953), pp. 3-16, at 5-8; Antonio Domeniconi, La Biblioteca Malatestiana, Cesena, 1961; and Lorenzo Baldacchini, ed., La Biblioteca Malatestiana di Cesena, Rome, 1992. 47. Albinia C. de la Mare, 'Lo scriptorium di Malatesta Novello', in Fabrizio Lollini and Piero Lucchi, eds, Libraria domini. I manoscritti della Biblioteca Malatestiana: testi e decorazioni, Bologna, 1995, pp. 35-93. See also Emanuele Casamassima and Cristina Guasti, 'La Biblioteca Malatestiana: le scritture e i copisti', Scrittura e civilta, 16 (1992), pp. 229-64. 48. Federica Toniolo, 'Decorazione all'antica nei manoscritti per Malatesta Novello', in Lollini and Lucchi, 1995, pp. 143-53. 49. Francesco Bianchi, Donatella Buovolo, Giovanna M. De' Caterina, Marilena Maniaci, Lucia Negrini, Ezio Omato, Marco Palma and Anna Pannega, 'Facteurs de variation de l'epaisseur du parchemin du Ville au XVe siecle', in Marilena Maniaci and Paola F. Munafo, eds, Ancient and Medieval Booh Materials and Techniques: Erice, 18-25 September 1992, 2 vols, Vatican City, 1993, I, pp. 95-184. 50. Also included in the analysis are forty more manuscripts that belonged to the library of Giovanni di Marco da Rimini, who was Malatesta's physician. 51. Bianchi et al., 1993, p. 141. 52. Cagni, 1969, pp. 48-51. 53. Ullman, 1960, pp. 131-3. 54. Cagni, 1969, pp. 48-51. 55. 'lo Gherardo non fo trafficho alchuno, ne sto in alchuna bottega. Vero e ch'io soleva schriveme (di manoscritti) per mio piacere, chon tutto ch'el guadagnio fusse picholissimo; ma perche la vista mi manchava, l'ho lasciato stare': quoted in Cagni, 1969, p. 51. 56. For prices of Italian books in general see: Cherubini et al., 1983; Donatella Nebbiai Dalla Guardia, I documenti per la storia delle biblioteclie medioevali (secoli IX-XV), Rome, 1992 (Materiali e ricerche, new ser., 15), pp. 31-46; Caterina Tristano and Francesca Cenni, eds, Liber/libra: ii mercato del libro manoscritto nel Medioevo italiano, Rome, 2005; and also the many articles listed in Monica Pedralli, Nuovo, grande, coverto e fen-ato: gli inventari di biblioteca e la cultura a Milano nel Quattrocento, Milan, 2002, p. 190, n. 10. 57. Pistarino, 1961. These prices are representative of the cost of each type of manuscript. They are examples from specific transactions and cannot be regarded as official, fixed fees. Unfortunately, Lupoto does not mention the cost of parchment for those manuscripts. The prices for the illuminations are chosen from among the average costs, excluding the most expensive books. In 1053
1449, in Genoa, 1 florin was valued at 43 soldi and in 1456 at 47 soldi. See Peter Spufford, Handbooh of Medieval Exchange, London, 1986, p. 113. 58. Pistarino, 1961, p. xxx. Years later, in 1474, when Lupoto began to sell printed books, a printed breviary was valued at not more than 4 gold ducats, only about a fifth of the price of a parchment exemplar. Similar data published on illuminated manuscripts produced in Rome during the fifteenth-century confirm these ratios (translated from Cherubini et al., 1983, p. 401): Parchment 5 duc 55 bol. Text 13 duc. 7 bol. Illuminations 4 duc. 6 bol. Binding 3 duc. Total 25 duc. 68 bol. 59. Melograni, 2005. Prices are based on the documents published in Antonelli, 1845, and Teodocio P. Lombardi, 'I corali de! museo de! duomo', in La cattedrale di Ferrara: atti del convegno nazionale di studi storici organi=to dall'Accademia delle Scienze di Ferrara, Ferrara, 11-13 maggio 1979, Ferrara, 1982, pp. 359-411, 397-411. See also Berenice Giovannucci Vigi, II museo della cattedrale di Ferrara: catalogo generale, Bologna, 1989, pp. 81-109. 60. In 1477 the canons bought 265 calfskin sheets (cliarte de vidello) to supply four cl10ir books and paid 84 lire 4 soldi 6 denari, or about 21 lire for each book (Antonelli, 1845, pp. 159-60, n. 15). The work of the cartolaio preparing the gatherings and binding them together was valued at 4 florins or 11 lire 12 soldi: ibid., p. 158, n. 12. 61. In a choir book (domenicale) prepared for the king's chapel in Naples, Fra' Tommaso wrote the text and Oddo de Alamanya added the musical notation (Tammaro De Marinis, La biblioteca napoletana dei re d'Aragona, 6 vols, Milan, 1947-69, II, p. 249, n. 258). The usual term for entering musical notation was notare: see Antonelli, 1845, p.170, n. 37. 62. One of the scribes, Fra' Evangelista Todescho, was paid 2 lire 5 soldi for each gathering (Antonelli, 1845, p. 159, n. 14). To write sixteen quatemioni cost 36 lire (2 lire 5 soldi x 16 = 32 lire 80 soldi = 36 lire). 63. Ibid., p. 157, n. 10. The detail of the cost of Antiphonary II is the following: 1 'prenzipio' (a full decorated page) 25 lire 6 initials at 10 soldi each 3 lire 7 initials at 6 soldi 2 lire 2 soldi 239 initials at 3 soldi 35 lire 17 soldi 7 initials at 2 soldi 14 soldi Total 66 lire 33 soldi 64. Ibid., pp. 168-9, nos 34-5. 65. Melograni, 2005. 66. Ferrarese illuminated intials had the same prices from 1477 to 1535. 67. Crivelli had pawned more than twenty gatherings to Jewish lenders and the Fabbrica had been put in the position of buying them back for 29 lire. See Ludovico Frati, I corali della basilica di S. Petronio in Bologna, Bologna, 1896, pp. 91 and 94. 68. Frati, 1896, pp. 18-20, 23-25, 84-7 (docs II-III) and 91-4; Francesco Malaguzzi Valeri, 'La miniatura in Bologna dal XIII al XVIII secolo', ASI, 18 (1896), pp. 242-315, at 277-9; Giordana Mariani Canova, 'I corali', in La basilica di San Petronio in Bologna, 2 vols, Milan, 1983-84, II, pp. 249-68; and Hermann, 1994, pp. 265-6, n. 122. 69. MS Modena, Biblioteca Estense, V.G. 12-13 = Lat. 422-423. My observations about the Borsa Bible are based on the following works: Giulio Be11oni, Il maggior miniatore della Bibbia di Borsa d'Este: 'Taddeo Crivelli', Modena, 1925; Charles M. Rosenberg, 'The Bible of Borsa d'Este: Inspiration and Use', in Cultum figurativa fe1Tarese tra XV e XVI secolo: scritti in memoria di 1054
Giacomo Bargellesi, Venice, 1981, pp. 51-74; Hermann, 1994, pp. 80-98 and 259-63; and La Bibbia di Borsa d'Este: commentario al codice, 2 vols, Modena, 1997. 70. See Table 9; see also Anna Melograni, 'Quanta costa la magnificenza? II caso della "Bibia bella", di Borsa d'Este', Bollettino d'Arte, 93 (2008), forthcoming. 71. For instance, a book of hours illuminated by Taddeo Crivelli cost 7 florins (or 19 lire 8 soldi 6 denari). See Bertoni, 1925, p. 17, n. 2, and p. 71, n. 35. 72. See Table B. 73. Adriano Franceschini, Artisti a Femira in eta umanistica e rinascimentale: Testimonianze archivistiche, 3 vols, Ferrara and Rome, 1993-97, Il pp. 111-13, documents 144r and 145n. 74. Luigi Napoleone Cittadella, Notizie amministrative, storiche, artistiche relative a Ferrara ricavate da documenti, 3 vols, Ferrara, 1864-68, I, p. 66. 75. Rosenberg, 1981, p. 53; and Tristano and Cenni, eds, 2005, pp. 182-3. 76. Federica Toniolo, 'La Bibbia di Borsa d'Este: cortesia e magnificenza a Ferrara tra Tardogotico e Rinascimento', in La Bibbia di Borsa, 1997, II, pp. 295-497, at 298. 77. Luca Mola, 'Leggi suntuarie in Veneta', in Maria G. Muzzarelli and Antonella Campanini, eds, Disciplinare il lusso: la legislazione simtuaria in Italia e in Europa tra Medioevo ed eta modema, Rome, 2003, pp. 47-57, at 50. In 1473 a ducat was worth 56 soldi: Melograni, 2005, pp. 179-80. 78. Each quintemo cost 75 lire marchesane and had ten leaves. 79. The surcoat was made by the strazarolo Jacomo de! Bario; it was described as 'una soprchoperta de panno orlato dintorno con cordella di solo pelo per Ia Bibia nova bella del nostro illustrissimo signore'. See Ernesto Milano, 'La Bibbia di Borsa d'Este: I'avventura di un codice', in La Bibbia di Borsa, 1997, I, pp. 15-72, p. 28. The box (chassa) was finished in 1463, and Maistro Agustimno Todescho intaiadore was paid for the work; see Franceschini, 1993-97, I, p. 612, document 9991. 80. Franceschini, 1993-97, II, p. 533, document 787e. To date, this payment has not been related to the Bible of Borsa. 81. Bertoni, 1925, pp. 29-30. 82. '... azo che piu comodamente poseseno miniare Ia soa Bibia'. See Bertoni, 1925, p. 29. 83. Toniolo, 1997, pp. 379-475. 84. Giovanni della Badia, one of the cathedral's canons, bought twenty quintemi in Bologna for 23 lire (ibid., pp. 305-6), or 1 lira 3 soldi each. If we multiply the cost of one gathering by the total number of gatherings (sixty quintemi), we have a cost of 69 lire. We do not know how much the pard1ment's preparation cost. Pietro Paolo Marone, the copyist, was paid 6 lire for each gathering, which means a total of 360 lire (ibid., p. 306). Taddeo Crivelli produced 42½ quintemi at a total cost of 3,551 lire, 6 dinari, and Franco dei Russi produced 17½quintemi for 1,373 lire 11 soldi (ibid., pp. 312-13). The cost of the other illuminators was included in these two sums. The Ferrarese stationer Gregorio di Gasparino was paid for the binding, between 1461 and 1462, a total of 50 ducats or 138 lire 15 soldi (ibid., p. 311). Finally, in 1491, the goldsmith Maistro Lachi received for the silver metalwork of the covers 31 ducats 12 grossi and 16 piccioli, equal to 97 lire 13 soldi (see n. 80). 85. Paolo Malanima, Economia preindustJiale, Milan, 1995, pp. 244-95, and Donata Degrassi, L'economia artigiana nell'Italia medievale, Rome, 1996. 86. On the production of illuminated manuscripts in particular see Alexander, 1992; Malcolm B. Parkes, 'Produzione e commercio dei libri manoscritti', in Simonetta Cavaciocchi, ed., Produzione e commercio della carta e del libro secc. XIII-XVIII: atti della XXIII settimana di studi, Prato, 15-20 aprile, 1991, Florence, 1992, pp. 331-42; Rouse and Rouse, 2000, pp. 67-8; and Angela Nuovo, II commercio librario nell'Italia de! Rinascimento, Milan, 1998, pp. 35-6. 1055
SECTION 5
Salzberg, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Every Piece of Rubbish Given to the Pressâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;: Defining and Debating Cheap Print In a dialogue by Niccolo Franco, first printed in Venice in 1539, two characters discussed the inundation of new printed products and deliberated how an aspiring bookseller might navigate the choppy waters of this emerging market and hope to make a profit from it. Sannio, the mouthpiece for Franco, advised his friend Cautano that a successful bookseller should stock a very diverse range of works, including small, cheap and humble ones. But how could one ever stock so many books, Cautano queried, when these days 'two thirds of men' are involved in writing and printing? Sannio quibbled with his friend's definition: 'every written paper, every shitty booklet, and every piece of rubbish given to the press you call a book?'.1 As this exchange suggests, what was meant by the term 'book', all of its traditional social and cultural associations, were coming under stress in this period, because of the emergence of so much printed matter covering the spectrum of size, price and quality. In Venice, the presses were booming, the city producing around 65 per cent of Italian print in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, several times as much as the next largest Italian printing centre, Rome.2 Customary notions of writers and readers, of their identities and motivations, were being challenged by the accessibility of print, while printers, publishers and booksellers assumed a new, powerful role in the circulation of texts and thus in the wider culture. Franco himself was one of numerous writers who converged on the city at this time (in his case, after an unsuccessful career as a courtier in Naples and Rome), attracted by the promise of literary glory. In reality, many of these furious scribblers had to be ready to traverse multiple genres and to sell their services as correctors, translators and editors for the presses, hence becoming known as poligrafi. Not all of them found success; after a brief stint as secretary to Venice's greatest literary celebrity, Pietro Aretino, Franco fell out with his employer and ended up fleeing the city after a knife attack by one of Aretino's followers. Franco, like others discussed below, would eventually fall foul of the Inquisition. 3 This chapter focuses on the words of Franco and other sixteenth-century commentators, many of whom worked closely with the presses, as they capture something of the intoxicating sense of excitement and upheaval that pervaded the period. They suggest the ways in which the book, more commonly associated with exclusive social spheres and spaces, was entering the marketplace, literally and figuratively, becoming a 1056
ubiquitous commodity on the streets of Venice and other cities alongside a proliferation of other more or less disposable consumer goods. As a result, what exactly a book was, what it was worth and who it was for, became acutely contentious questions.4 As I propose here, much of the controversy focused on the lower end of the print spectrum, and on the qualities that were particularly associated with the kind of material considered in this book: its cheapness (or worthlessness), its abundance (or ubiquity) and the inferior quality (both material and literary) that resulted from the speed of its production and the commercial aspirations of its purveyors. Although there was much continuity between manuscripts and early printed books, cheap printed broadsheets and booklets were a novel presence in urban culture and sometimes a troubling one. For many, they represented the first opportunity to own a text, the first possibility to enter the community of readers, and must have been welcomed. But for some commentators, they were the most visible manifestation of the sheer proliferation of texts unleashed by the press, of the enormous potential power of print to spread ideas and information, for good or ill, and as a result they represented a challenge to established cultural order. Defining cheap print Before examining these different points of view, we need to look more closely at the category of material I am calling cheap print, to consider its physical characteristics and cultural associations. In the sixteenth century, people were less likely to refer to the type of ephemeral material that concerns me as libri (books), than to use diminutive terms such as libriccini, libretti (little books), or opuscoli, operette, operine (little works). They might also refer to this loose category by naming the genres of text usually printed in this form and the modes and spaces of its sale. For example, a 1543 edict of the Venetian Council of Ten stated that no one could print or sell any work without first obtaining a licence, extending this to all those 'who sell such books and works, prognostications, stories, songs, letters, and other similar things on the bridge of the Rialto, and in other places of this city'.5 I adopt the comprehensive term 'cheap print' for this material, in order to stress what I believe to be its most important characteristic in the context of the period. Because these works were small, they were cheap, as paper was the most expensive component of print production.6 The terminology for cheap print in contemporary historiography is not settled. Italian historians are now less likely to use the potentially problematic term stampe popolari (popular prints) than more neutral formulations like libri per tutti or libri di larga circolazione (books for all/of wide circulation) and fogli volanti ('flying sheets'), for broadsheets and fliers. In English, I prefer to use 'cheap print' to encompass the broad category from broadsheets to small pamphlets.7 1057
The information we have regarding prices suggests that a good deal of printed matter was very cheap indeed. Although it is difficult to establish a standard price for small books and broadsheets in Renaissance Venice, fragments of evidence suggest that from early on these were much more affordable than 'proper' books, which, according to Grendler, cost an average of about one to two lire in this period.8 Already in the sales register of the bookseller Francesco de' Madus in the 1480s, Lowry observed book prices dropping as the numbers of copies rose. Among the cheapest works was the small literacy primer the Psalteriolo, being sold by the dozen for as little as two quattrini (half a soldo) per copy.9 By the early sixteenth century, some works were even cheaper. For instance, the diarist Sanudo recorded that in 1509 printed songs about the War of the League of Cambrai were being sold around the city for one bezzo, or half a soldo, each.10 As noted in the Introduction, the following year the text of the Pope's excommunication of the French could be bought on the Rialto for one soldo.11 This was also the suggested price for a two-leaf quarto of sonnets by the Venetian poet Leonardo Giustinian, and for a four-leaf oration by the Imperial ambassador printed in Venice in the same period. 12 Evidence from the purchases of the collector Hernan Colon suggests similarly cheap prices for print (including Venetian print) in other Italian cities in the period. 13 These prices were certainly very low, however it remains difficult to ascertain what they meant to ordinary people, rather than to wealthy collectors such as Colon, who could presumably buy hundreds of pamphlets without batting an eyelid. Information on the ordinary costs of living is scarce. However, cheap print prices seem to compare to those of basic foodstuffs and frequently used services. Two soldi was the price of a loaf of bread in a time of grain shortage (1534), or of one mackerei.14 A pound of oil or candles at the Rialto market in the late fifteenth century should have cost no more than four soldi, the same maximum price set for a visit to a barber.15 For those not wealthy enough to own a gondola, crossing the Grand Canal on a traghetto or ferry boat cost a bagattino (worth one-twelfth of a sol do) - an unremarkable expense at a time when there was only one bridge across the city's main waterway, but dozens of traghetti stops.16 Thus half a soldo for a printed pamphlet was not an unimaginable luxury for a skilled workman (like a print shop compositor, who earned about three to four ducats a month) or a shop assistant in a mercer's store (sixteen to eighteen soldi a day).17 Although not negligible, the price of a soldo or less for many small printed items was far from prohibitive. Buying such a work was significantly cheaper than going to a play, for example. In 1515, entry to a production of Plautus's Asinaria in the vernacular at the refectory of the convent of Santo Stefano cost ten soldi, which one historian suggests was a 'modest price ... accessible to a large public'.18 By the early sixteenth century, 1058
then, a burgeoning category of cheaper printed matter was appearing in the Venetian marketplace, at prices accessible to a large proportion of the population.19 The economics of cheap print generally meant that large quantities had to be printed at low cost in order for the producers to make a profit.20 The physical form of these works was geared entirely towards keeping their costs low. Most of the works I consider could have been printed on one sheet of paper, folded into an octavo of eight leaves or a quarto of four. Some are even smaller - a single printed flier or broadsheet. Paper was often of poor quality, particularly from later in the sixteenth century. These works almost never feature printing with red ink or other adornments that made the printing process more complicated and thus expensive. Simple woodcut illustrations were common especially earlier in the century but rarely were produced specifically for the text. A generic image on the title page served to give some indication of the type of text presented, for example a combat scene could indicate either a chivalric tale or an account of a recent battle.21 Easy and inexpensive to assemble, these works were held together at most by a couple of stab-stitches and, increasingly, with cheap cardboard covers.22 They were unlikely to be bound in leather, except by the odd collector who might gather together a miscellany of small works. So the physical form in itself usually signalled low cost and thus availability to a diverse public. But Grendler has suggested that some of these characteristics also communicated that a work was popular in a broader cultural sense, that is easily accessible to all sorts of people even those with a low level of education, or 'intended for a noncritical audience which read for pleasure'. Grendler stresses the fact that printers largely stuck to traditional and familiar styles of presentation - old-fashioned typefaces such as Gothic or an early version of Roman type - to indicate popular texts, at least until the 1530s when they increasingly began to use italic type to indicate new works by living authors to readers looking for novelty or innovation.23 However, it is important to emphasise that, particularly in the first half of the sixteenth century, a great variety of material was presented with some or all of the physical characteristics that Grendler says expressed a work's 'popularity', from conservative and familiar texts to newer, more innovative ones. The same decorative woodcut borders, for example, were reused across very different genres of texts, from religious works to chivalric tales, suggesting that readers did not always immediately identify the type of text from the physical presentation (see Figures land 2). (As Niccoli notes, these booklets also were distinguished by a 'distinct heterogeneity' of content; for example, bawdy poetry might be printed alongside devotional material.)24 The inhabitants of Venice, including the less affluent and educated, encountered a wide range of different texts on the market at affordable prices and in manageable forms, and had to decide what did and did not interest them, what they could or could not understand. Physical form and presentation were impor1059
tant in helping them make these decisions but so too were the spaces and the ways in which they were sold, and the role of pedlars and performers in advertising the works and communicating their qualities to potential consumers. It is worth reflecting briefly on a few further implications of the way in which these texts were presented, which give indications of their modes of sale and use. The titles often were displayed prominently, frequently in larger letters and/or in Gothic typeface to make them stand out from the text which followed. These titles, and the woodcut illustrations that often accompanied them, increased the commercial possibilities of the text, and illustrate how printers and publishers actively sought new ways to entice buyers; they could not just rely on word of mouth or the established reputation of an author or a work. In some instances an author's name was advertised on the title page sometimes the name of a famous figure who had never given permission for their works to be printed or whose works were not even actually included within the text and occasionally we find a portrait of the author if they were sufficiently renowned and perhaps even visually recognisable. At times, this approach was designed to evoke the memory of, and make it clear that the text derived from, a performance, as in the title-page reference to Ippolito Ferrarese che cantava in banca ('who sang on a bench') (Figure 3) or the inclusion of images of music-making (Figure 4).25 The titles suggest the words likely used by street vendors to advertise the texts; as Niccoli points out, they often start with the word questo ('this'), as the vendor would have indicated to the text, as in Eustachio Celebrino's anti-syphilis booklet This Is the Way to Cure the French Disease (Figure 5).26 The commercial possibilities of titles were discussed in a 1542 preface letter in which the printer of the work distanced himself from others in his trade who by these means enticed readers to buy old or poorquality works: 'It is enough for them with the title alone to spur an appetite to buy, when they have some young rascal go through the streets and piazzas crying "New work newly printed! Gentlemen, buy this lovely new story!"'27 The verbal and visual proclamation of a work as novel, useful, funny, beautiful, horrifying or pious was intended to lure potential buyers, as printers pioneered the art of printed advertisement and experimented with sensationalism. Moreover, the very fact that the majority of such editions were in the vernacular and that they were short, simple texts, often in verse, immediately communicated their accessibility to a much larger public than those who could approach large works of densely printed Latin prose, for example.28 It is imperative to imagine these small and often very humble-looking items within an original context that must have been very much richer and multisensory. Works in verse in particular would have been performed both by professionals and amateurs, to a popular tune, although we can almost never recover the refrains because the music was not printed alongside the words. 29 They might have been recited with vigorous 1060
gestures and exaggerated expressions, sometimes by performers in evocative costumes. They were as likely to have been sold and consumed within public and communal contexts, in the piazza, tavern or workshop, as to be found in restricted spaces like the bookshop or study. If the materiality of manuscript communication in the period evoked a sense of intimacy, of belonging to a select in-group and 'of close communication between the like-minded',30 many of these texts were more likely to spur a sense of community with the crowd, with the potentially very large public of readers and listeners, both in Venice and beyond. Many were tied to specific moments and contexts, and designed for obsolescence, to be used and discarded. At the same time, they could be employed in intimate and personal ways, for example the printed poems, orations and images that were folded into amulets, carried in a pocket or on the body. Just because these works were cheap and widely available did not mean that they were not valued by those who bought them.31 GALLERY 12.3
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So, at least until the seventeenth century, when publishers like the Remondini began to produce more uniform series of cheap libri da risma - booklets transmitted to pedlars in sheet form, by weight, and priced by the ream of 500 unbound sheets - cheap print was a category with blurred edges, its cultural associations not clearly fixed.32 Nevertheless, from quite early in the sixteenth century we can see emerging a category of print at the bottom end of the market which was becoming more or less clearly separated in people's minds from 'proper' books, characterised by low material value and quality. In 1537, for example, the Venetian Senate passed a law attempting to counter slipping standards in the printing trade. Threatening to fine those printers who did not use good-quality paper for their works, the Senate exempted 'small things that are sold up to the sum often soldi each'.33 As we have seen, this would have included almost the entire category of works I call cheap print: the smallest editions at the lower end of the market which were expected to be produced quickly and cheaply. Although this printed form hosted a diverse range of texts and was consumed by a heterogeneous public, increasingly it was associated with inferior social status and low intellectual and material worth, with cultural as well as physical ephemerality. For some critics, cheap print was troubling because it seemed closer to the essence of a pure commodity than to the hallowed and almost sacred nature of a book. This was expressed by the fact that commonly it was sold in open, public spaces by poor, even indigent individuals, alongside other kinds of small ephemeral luxuries such as ribbons, soap or perfumes. Because of this, its ultimate worth, and its presence and impact in urban life, were a matter of hot dispute. A gift from God or the work of the devil? In The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Eisenstein argued that, 'whether the new art was considered a blessing or a curse; whether it was consigned to the Devil or attributed to God; the fact remains, that the initial increase in output did strike contemporary observers as sufficiently remarkable to suggest supernatural intervention'. 34 And, indeed, the benefits and dangers of the press were a subject of heated debate from the earliest days of printing in Italy. Despite many continuities in both the texts printed and the physical characteristics of early printed books, the speed of the press to mass-produce literature and lower prices, disseminating texts throughout society, provoked extreme reactions from various cultural commentators. From the late fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century, a number of prominent social commentators, particularly humanists and popular writers, expressed a fear of print's uncontrollable disseminative ability and thus its potential to break down the social, political, cultural and religious boundaries which organised Venetian and Italian society. Others, particularly those who worked closely with the presses, rather rejoiced, for more or less the same reasons (and the press itself gave them the means to record and disseminate their 1062
opinions). Often these fears and hopes crystallised around cheap print, its producers, distributors and consumers, as the ultimate expressions of the capacity of the medium for mass production. Furthermore, cheap print represented a class of commodity with fewer precedents, a more distinct novelty.35 It is difficult to know to what degree ordinary individuals shared these views. Many simply must have enjoyed the new range of printed products available to them, others not been interested at all. But these views are significant, because they were heard and sometimes shared by those in positions of power who would ultimately decide how to react to the spread of printing. Many of the most vocal commentators on the impact of printing in Italy lived in Venice, or spent some time working there. This is not surprising, since the growth of the Venetian printing industry was so explosive; foreign printers and publishers poured into the city to try their luck, and new print and bookshops sprouted rapidly in the central urban areas. There were a few voices of outspoken opposition to this development. Already in the early 1470s, a Dominican scribe named Fra Filippo de Strata passionately urged the Venetians to regulate the foreign printers (mostly Germans at this point), whom he described as 'utterly uncouth types of people', drunken and greedy for profit.36 The Venetian government initially granted an exclusive privilege over the new art of printing to the German John of Speyer, but after John's death in 1470 the monopoly was allowed to lapse and the industry permitted to grow with little restraint. De Strata, writing to the doge, also raised other concerns that would echo throughout the following century, about the degradation of moral and scholarly standards as a result of the press. He complained that the presses were flooding the city with books, exposing young and tender minds to works of an inappropriate nature and letting all and sundry think themselves learned.37 'Writing [argued de Strata] ... should be respected and held to be nobler than all goods, unless she has suffered degradation in the brothel of the printing presses. She is a maiden with a pen, a harlot in print.'38 De Strata's feeling that print commercialised and thus corrupted the book tapped into a long tradition of thinking about books as rare, precious repositories of knowledge, to be exchanged as gifts, not within the framework of the market, and continued to be shared.39 As printing boomed to unprecedented levels in the sixteenth century, especially the production of cheaper books in the vernacular, the discussion continued unabated. Many of those who wrote on this topic were involved with the printing industry directly, particularly writers who published their works and/or edited or corrected the editions of others. While some praised the benefits of printing wholeheartedly, many betrayed a conflicted ambivalence towards the new technology, which offered them new possibilities for publicising their works and making a living less dependent on patronage, at the same time as it commercialised the production of literature and fundamentally restructured the world of books and learning. 1063
Three main areas of concern are evident in the critical or satirical remarks expressed throughout the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries about the proliferation of print and printers, all interrelated. The first regards the status and motivations of printers, as men with control over the dissemination of literature but often with little education and few scholarly ideals. The second concerns the uncontrolled proliferation and thus commercialisation of texts inherent in the expansion of printing. A final concern was for the way in which these other developments were allowing new writers and new readers into the literary sphere, undermining traditional distinctions between the learned and unlearned. All of these anxieties are inflected with notions of class, of the right and proper ordering of society and culture, and the pressure that print was placing on it. An escalating sense of instability and disruption is apparent in the views of many commentators, reaching a crescendo around the middle of the sixteenth century at the same time as civic and religious authorities began to institute mechanisms aiming to bring the press under control. The northern humanist Erasmus is considered one of the first authors to have taken full advantage of the promotional possibilities of print to further his career, however he is also exemplary of the ambivalence of many writers towards the press in this period.40 When Erasmus published an edition of his Adages in Venice in 1508, he used the occasion to lavish praise on his Venetian printer, Aldo Manuzio, whose reputation had attracted him to Italy. Aldo's famous trademark of the dolphin and anchor, stamped on his books and probably hanging above the door of his shop in the parish of San Paternian, 'is now [wrote Erasmus] not only famous but beloved wherever Good Letters are known or cherished'. Aldo was accorded the highest praise for his commitment to publishing the classics of Greek and Roman literature, thereby making them easily available to scholars everywhere. 'This man seems born to restore [classical learning], and shaped for that destiny by the Fates themselves; all his desires are turned to one thing, all his tireless efforts are spent on it, no labour is too great, if only literature in all its glory may be restored pure and unsullied to honest minds.'41 When Erasmus updated his work in 1525, however, he felt moved to insert some extra comments into this section. Aldo had died in 1515, Venetian printed books were snapped up everywhere because of the fame of the Aldine press, and yet 'rascally printers' were abusing this reputation by printing shamelessly inaccurate works. 'The law sees to it that no one may make shoes or boxes without the approbation of the masters' guild', Erasmus complained, and yet the greatest authors are handed out to the public by people so illiterate that they cannot even read, or so lazy that they don't trouble to go over what has been printed, or so mean that they would rather let a good book get choked up with six thousand mistakes than spend a few coins on paying someone to supervise the proofreading ... Not everyone may have leave to be a baker, but printing is a trade open to any mortal man.42 1064
This variety of criticism was recurrent. TI1e printer held in his hands the keys to literature and learning but often had no particular training or vocation for the task. As Erasmus said, in Venice it was easier to become a printer than a baker, and he was right, for there would be no printers' guild until the second half of the sixteenth century.43 A printer like Manuzio managed to rise above the fray and attain unrivalled authority and prestige because of his elite intellectual pedigree, eminent patrons and clearly articulated scholarly ideals. Most printers could not claim these attributes, nor did they necessarily want to. Such qualities were not essential for someone who, for example, simply aimed to make a living producing popular, vernacular works for a wider market. However, it is still notable that comments such as those of Erasmus were inflected with strong connotations of class and social distinction. As the century progressed, this critique was fed by a growing snobbery towards the 'mechanical' arts, as Venetian and Italian culture in general took on a more aristocratic stripe.44 One of the characters in Anton Francesco Dani's dialogue on printing (155253) described the trade as a 'mechanical, sordid activity', a 'job for commoners', compared to the more honourable scribal arts.45 As Doni worked for a time as a printer himself, and collaborated continuously with the presses in Venice, this probably did not reflect his own opinion, however the dialogue form allowed him to air the sorts of views in circulation at the time. Tomaso Garzoni, the Lateran canon and writer who described the spectrum of urban professions in his Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (first published in Venice in 1585) voiced particular praise for bookselling precisely because it was not a mechanical art: 'it is not at all dirty in itself, but clean and polite'.46 Criticism of printers focused not only on their lack of education and training. TI1e printer became the scapegoat for many authors disturbed by an inevitable consequence of printing with movable type: the commercialisation of textual transactions. Laudable printers were those, like Manuzio, who were (or claimed to be) concerned only to benefit the cause of 'Good Letters'. Less praiseworthy were the many who entered the industry to make a profit, so that they might, as Erasmus implied, just as well be producing loaves of bread as books. TI1is distinction was evident in Erasmus's satirical representation of Aldo's business partner, the printer Andrea Torresani d'Asola, in the colloquy Opulentia sordida. Torresani was presented in the guise of Antronius, a 'Mr Moneybags' who was cheap, mean and cared only for making money. 'That's the way it is with people who go from rags to riches', remarked the character standing in for Erasmus in the colloquy.47 The critique of printers thus evoked the distinction between the sacrality of the book as a cultural entity and the mass-produced printed product, harder to distinguish from any other commercial commodity.
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It was not only scholars who bemoaned printers' single-minded pursuit of profit, and the concern that their greed led inevitably to the lowering of standards of quality, and the deception of customers with inferior or faulty copies of works. A popular poem printed in Venice in the 1520s warned its readers and listeners about a long list of urban professions, including printers and booksellers, who found devious ways to dupe unwary customers out of their money.48 'I am not speaking about all of them, worthy listener', the author wrote, 'but of those who employ great deceit', such as selling books with missing or incorrect pages. 'And never trust their words', he urged, 'because their habit is to talk up their wares'.49 According to a speaker in Doni's dialogue about printing, 'many printers lay honesty aside for lucre, so indifferent and errorridden is their printing, so poor their choice of paper and the type that is chipped, rammed in and forced to fitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.50 Even Garzoni, who was a great advocate of the press, noted that booksellers could be unscrupulous salesmen, prone to overcharge and to 'sell to peasants and rustics with their sales prattle some foolish thing they have in their shop, and ... [to] talk up a piece of nonsense composed by a shoemaker more than some good and useful work written by a gentleman'. Printers, meanwhile, could be very careless with corrections, devoting their attention to useless trifles while neglecting worthy works.51 Printers but also others involved in the production, dissemination and consumption of print (including hack writers, booksellers and ordinary readers) were blamed for what many sixteenth-century commentators saw as a glut of printed matter, a vertiginous increase in the quantity of texts but not in their quality. Erasmus, for example, showed great concern for the bewildering proliferation of print issuing uncontrolled from the presses, the 'swarms of new books ... rubbish written by all and sundry'.52 Characters in Doni's dialogue about printing echoed this feeling of information overload. One character remarked that 'there's such an abundance of stuff to read about our feet, we find ourselves climbing a rubbish heap', also likening the situation to confronting a table laden with a bounty of food that turned out to be mostly inedible.53 Writers with unjustified pretensions were partly to blame for this; the character of Coccio, for instance, complained that 'every last pedant seems bent on bringing out halfbaked legends of dubious origin filched from a thousand other tall tales' in a two-sheet pamphlet, then considering himself a rival to great writers such as Bembo and Ariosto.54 But new types of readers also contributed to the problem, according to Giuliano de' Ricci, who complained that 'the good authors are no longer valued since the ignorant pleb goes more for those books which deal with lascivious things than those which deal with continence and sobriety'. As a result of this consumer demand, he suggested, 'the world is filled with despicable and licentious books'.55
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Two cultural systems were rubbing up against each other, causing friction and heat: the more exclusive system of literary circulation among small groups of elites and scholars, which favoured the language of patronage, friendship and gift-giving, and the newer commercial culture of the press. In practice many writers signed up to the new creed while continuing to proclaim the old in their public presentations of themselves, particularly in dedication letters and prefaces. Pietro Aretino exemplified this shifting terrain. Coming to Venice after the sack of Rome and rapidly embedding himself at the centre of the city's booming printing trade, the writer and son of a cobbler recognised the self-promotional possibilities of the press like few before him. Despite his lowly origins and little formal education, Aretino was the first writer to publish his own letters in the vernacular, proclaiming the power of his printed words of praise or censure to make him the 'scourge of princes'. Yet he also carried on more traditional practices, using print to win the patronage of princes and noblemen.56 However, Aretino reserved his criticism for the figure of the writer rather than the printer. In a letter to his printer Marcolini, he declared himself repelled by what he perceived to be the cold commercialisation of creativity entailed in the mass production and sale of books, pronouncing that a writer 'who goes to the [book]shop in the evening to collect the money from the day's sales smacks of the pimp who empties his woman's purse before he goes to bed. Please God, I wish that the favours of our princes and not the poverty of those who buy them will pay me for my trouble in writing.'57 In Aretino's words, some common cultural associations emerge, stretching back at least to De Strata. Print was connected with the public spaces of the street or marketplace, with the common, cheap and sordid. In implied opposition to this were more exclusive forms of communication (such as the manuscript) in more exclusive spaces (such as the academy or elite literary circle), where texts might circulate as gifts among the elite and educated. In a similar vein, ambulant pedlars (sometimes also performers) of print, those who disseminated the cheapest forms of print to the widest audience in open public sites, at times could be portrayed as embodiments of the most crassly commercialistic effects of printing. In another poem by the scribe De Strata, a seller with a basketload of books offered them all 'for three or two grossetti, I As if he wanted to sell me a sack of cats'.58 The hack writer Giovan Battista Dragoncino tried to ennoble some of his poems by claiming that he had them printed, 'not to lay them out venally on the piazzas on some bench or another, as I have done with many other of my little works in the past', but so that they could be shared among the exclusive friendship circle of the dedicatee.59 In Franco's 1539 dialogue about bookselling, the character Sannio stands on a bench, crying out his wares, which are also written out on a large board (cartone). With the characteristic hyperbole of the charlatan, he calls out to customers to 'come to me if you want to make something of yourself. I, I, I, and no one else, possess the true art of making any man a Solomon ... [Come to me] whoever wants to learn letters 1067
without having to learn from pedants'.60 After seven fruitless hours on his bench, Sannio complains to his friend Cautano, he has sold nothing, and starts to knock down the price of his wares. From offering a work that will make buyers into 'a Pope, or a Bishop, or a Cardinal' for ten scudi, he eventually drops down to peddling 'a good poet for half a soldo'.61 What has the world come to, he asks Cautano that today ... for the price of a salad you cannot sell off Poetry? If I were a charmer selling pills and roots, or a charlatan who shows off asps and snakes, you can be sure that right now I would not be wanting for business. But ... today the avarice of the world is such, that one appreciates a quattrino more than lo learn a thousand pieces of wisdom.62 Literature was being taken out onto the streets and hawked alongside ordinary products like food; the secrets of the arts and sciences, of elite manners and customs, sold at rock-bottom prices to all and sundry. Street sellers and performers were depicted as emblematic figures of an age when everything seemed to be up for sale. They were often poor and uneducated; they jostled for space and vied for attention with the rest of the rabble in the squares; they were seen to reduce the printed text to just one more item for sale in the marketplace. Moreover, they sold publicly that which had once been mainly the reserve of the educated and the wealthy. The social snobbery often applied to printers and pedlars was present too when some writers surveyed the entry of new readers into the circle of literate communication as a result of print. Richardson writes of how, in the sixteenth century, 'the frontiers of the world of letters were now being pushed back to include parts of the population to whom letterati had previously been able to feel superior: access to the ideas of others and the ability to diffuse one's own ideas were, in other words, no longer reserved for an elite'.63 Many writers commented with ambivalence, or outright disapproval, that the abundance of cheap print in the vernacular was admitting many new groups into the circle of readers. Doni's character Coccio argued that Many people of low extraction who, once upon a time and to the greater advantage of the world, would have devoted their efforts lo mechanical crafts in keeping with their abilities, are now lured by how easy it is to study and have begun to take up reading ... The dignity and good reputation of literature have been belittled and the rewards too have dwindled, given the case and paltry effort required to become a man of learning nowadays.64 Similarly, one of Franco's characters lamented the decline of letters and of letterati, while 'manual labourers, and artisans ... triumph in this world'.65 Ricci sneered that 'any ciabattino [shoemaker], as long as he knows how to read', might put his 'filthy hands' on a copy of the great authors, now translated into the vernacular, while 'every vile little merchant wants to debate the highest secrets of philosophy'. 66 1068
However, this negative point of view was not the only one expressed in the period. For many of those who made a living in the various branches of the printing industry, the desire to open up print to an ever wider market of consumers made good commercial sense, even if they had some reservations about the cultural consequences. As Franco's Sannio suggested in the 1540s, a successful bookseller needed to keep his shop stocked with all kinds of little works (operine) translated into the vernacular, 'because the manual labourers, who are not lettered [i.e. do not know Greek and Latin], in order to learn De agibilibus mundi, will want Pliny. The soldiers, who do not understand Latin, will want the wars of Appian with the Commentaries of Caesar.'67 lt was in the bookseller's interests to cater to these new consumers, to far concorso col popolazzo (do business with the plebs), since 'the swarms of the vulgar are greater than the academies of the learned'.68 Similarly tongue-in-cheek, Anton Francesco Doni wrote in his satirical preface to the illiterate in his Seconda Libraria of 1551 of how it was the unenviable task of he and his fellow poligrafi to produce all kinds of writings, 'every quality of meat' for readers to devour. Works had to be published that might please 'Lords, gentlemen, ladies, workers, peasants and porters ... because every sort of person reads'. Writers like Doni must be able to speak to the masses; like preachers, they were 'listened to by all of the trades, and our scribblings read by all of the professions'.69 Others celebrated, more wholeheartedly than Doni, this capacity of the press to break the monopoly on learning and initiate new readers and writers. One vocal advocate was the Bolognese charlatan and writer Leonardo Fioravanti who was attracted to Venice partly by the possibilities of the printing industry. As he wrote in his paean to the art of printing: since this blessed press appeared, the majority of people, women as well as men, know how to read; and what is more important is that philosophy and medicine, and all the other branches of knowledge, are abridged and printed in this our mother tongue, in such a way that every one can know his part of it ... I see that the majority, even including women, speak about philosophy, medicine, astrology, mathematics and about as many sciences as there are in the world without being doctors; and so no one can be deceived any more, since every one who wants to work his brain a little can be learned, and the cause of this has been the press.70 In the past, the povera plebe had been beguiled by the complicated speeches of the learned. Now, Fioravanti wrote, 'the kittens have opened their eyes, so that everyone can see and understand of his own accord, so that we the doctors can no longer deceive the people' as before.71 Fioravanti was echoed by Tomaso Garzoni, who believed that the press had 'opened the eyes of the blind, and brought light to the ignorant', who could no longer be deceived.72
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As the comments of writers like Franco and Fioravanti suggest, it was not printing alone that was perceived to be an agent of change, but the press in concert with the move to translate works into the vernacular 'mother tongue' and to publish abridgements and shorter, easier texts. These changes were celebrated from early on in the history of printing, particularly by the first writers and printers to champion the use of the vernacular. The Ferrarese printer, publisher and performer Niccolo Zoppino who based his business in Venice in the early decades of the sixteenth century used the prefaces of his works to trumpet his plan to publish numerous vernacular translations in order to cater to the great numbers of readers who could not read Latin or Greek. For example, Zoppino's letter to the reader of the 1524 edition of the Roman historian Justin celebrated the many recent translations from Latin, 'so that both the learned and the unlearned might have perfect knowledge' of the ancient histories.73 In the same years, other printers and hack writers incorporated similar ideas into their advertising rhetoric in titles and other paratexts that addressed readers directly. For instance, the anonymous translator of the Vernacular Herbal (1522) praised the public-spiritedness of the printer Alessandro Bindoni who commissioned the work and wrote of his own motivation: to help the 'many needy ... and especially the poor' by translating this work 'so that those who do not possess the Latin language might understand the secrets of nature for themselves'.74 'Moved by charity', the hack writer Eustachio Celebrino claimed that he had published an account of his own experience of syphilis and his own cure in order to benefit 'the health of the infinite poor infected with the French disease who, not having the way, or the capacity, to pay for doctors and medicine, can by themselves and at little expense in a short time free themselves from such a disease and inflagration'.75 Many publications explicitly spoke to classes of readers who previously had little access to books. Giovan Antonio Tagliente's brief writing manual (1525) promised to instruct 'both the masculine sex and the feminine, both gentle spirits and rough ones' to write beautifully.76 Zoppino addressed some of his books specifically to female readers and advertised one embroidery handbook as a means for lowly born women to better themselves and their prospects by mastering the skills taught in the book.77 Countless other cheap works in the vernacular advertised themselves as keys to discrete bodies of practical or arcane knowledge that previously had been more restricted and secret.78 Celebrino alone published pamphlets instructing how to lay a dinner table, write love letters, learn the mercantesca handwriting style, concoct various cosmetics that would 'make any woman beautiful', cure syphilis and preserve one's health in a time of plague.79 It was clearly in the interests of printers and writers working at the lower end of the market to celebrate the proliferation of cheap print and of texts, particularly vernacular texts, that could reach many different readers. These individuals had less need
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to bother with social and intellectual prejudices and more to gain from turning their attention to new constituencies of readers and consumers. In the case of Zoppino and others, this advocacy of the press was linked to a strong belief in the social benefits of spreading writings in the vernacular, particularly religious works.80 Indeed, from early on in the history of printing, some prominent figures rejoiced in its capacities to open up religious teaching to many more people. The Ferrarese preacher Girolamo Savonarola had been one of the earliest religious reformers to make extensive use of the press and he frequently celebrated how his many translations into the vernacular would make his teachings accessible to the 'unlettered faithful' (fideli illiterati).81 'So that ordinary people (il vulgo) might taste these fruits I they have been translated from Latin into the vernacular', was the more humble claim of Fra Giovanni da Firenze in his edition of penitential psalms in octave verses published in Venice around 1490.82 Similarly, the cleric and writer Giuliano Dati wrote in his Story of Saint Job that he had translated the work into vernacular verse voluntarily in the hope that someone 'will be able to own this work I who cannot have the great Bible at home'.83 Several decades later, when such notions were becoming more explicitly controversial, the poligrafo Antonio Brucioli still reiterated the conviction, in the dedication to his vernacular translation of the New Testament, that the word of God should be heard (and, indeed, read) by 'the beggar, the smith, the peasant, the mason, the fisherman, the publicans, and all the conditions of men, and of womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.84 As will be discussed in Chapter 5, it was in these middle decades of the century that secular and religious authorities began to make more serious efforts to bring the printing industry under control, part of a wider climate of increasing social discipline. Indeed, many of the writers cited above, who had registered their alarm as well as their exhilaration as they witnessed the expansion of the print market, were among those whose works would fall prey to the censors, sometimes with very serious consequences for themselves. For example, Doni's works were condemned to be expurgated in 1593, the same year that Niccolo Franco's entire As we have seen, there was incessant debate about the merits of the press in Venice continuing from the 1470s throughout the sixteenth century and beyond. Ultimately, most of the commentators accepted that the press was there to stay, and that it brought benefits to Italian society as well as potential dangers. But many shared the belief that some sort of control was needed; if not outright censorship, then a way to distinguish the worthy publications from the rest. In parallel with the promulgation of the Indices of Prohibited Books in the second half of the sixteenth century, a broader cultural movement, both satirical and serious, attempted to catalogue and categorise the enormous quantity of books on the market; to distinguish good, canonical literature from rubbish for the masses. Examples of this trend range from Anton Francesco Doni's first and second Libraria (1550 and 1551) 1071
respectively, a catalogue of vernacular books in print and a satirical list of fake vernacular titles - to the playful Convito universale (1592) of the Bolognese singer Giulio Cesare Croce in which contemporary classics like Castiglione's Book of the Courtier and Ariosto's Satires 'dined' alongside canonical Greek and Roman texts (Homer, Virgil, Plutarch et al.) at a banquet of books, waited upon by characters from 'second class' popular titles.90 However exaggerated some of the views expressed in the period may have been, collectively they register the perception of a pervasive cultural shift taking place in sixteenth-century Italy, particularly in Venice, with the appearance of so many new texts, readers and writers. The explosion detonated in the late fifteenth century continued to resonate into the sixteenth and many commentators recognised that, for good or ill, it could have profound long-term consequences, not only in cultural terms but also for society, politics and religion. As we will see, their hopes and fears were not to be entirely realised, but first we must descend from the perspective of writers and other cultural commentators to examine what changes could be seen, felt and heard on the street. Notes 1. 'Ogni carta scritta, ogni scartaffo merdoso, et ogni cosaccia data a le stampe tu chiami libro?' N. Franco, Dialogo del venditore di libri (1539-93) (Venice: Marsilio, 2005), p. 36. This dialogue was published in Franco's Dialogi piacevoli ... (Venice: G. Giolito, 1539). 2. L. Baldacchini, 'I centri di produzione del libro ncll'Italia de! Cinqucccnto', in M. Guerrini (ed.), II linguaggio della biblioteca. Scritti in onore di Diego Maltese (Milan: Editricc Bibliografica, 1996), pp. 501-2. 3. On Franco, sec C. Di Filippo Barcggi, Il mestiere dello scrivere. Lavoro intelletuale e mercato librario a Venezia nel Cinquecento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1988); P. F. Grcndlcr, Critics of the Italian World, 1530-1560: Anton Francesco Dani, Nicolo Franco and Ortensia Lando (Madison, MI and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969). These books are also essential reading on the wider group of the poligrafi. 4. On these debates, see also N. Bonazzi, Il carnevale delle idee: l'antipedanteria nell'eta della stampa, Venezia, 1538-1553 (Bologna: Gedit, 2007). 5. 'Quelle veramente che vendeno de tal libri et opere pronostici, hystorie, canzone, lettere, et altre simel case sul Ponte de Rialto et in altri loci de questa cita' (ASV, CX, Parle comuni, f. 32, fasc. 234). 6. See Watt, Cheap Print, p. I. 7. The term 'pamphlet' could suggest a topical work by the late sixteenth century, but I use it here in a more neutral bibliographical sense to indicate a short, unbound book. See J. Raymond, Pamphlets and Pamphleteering in Early Modem Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 8; Watt, Cheap Print, p. 264. I also consider examples of 'free print', such as printed laws and advertisements, because they were also widely available and accessible. 8. Grendler, Roman Inquisition, p. 14. 9. Lowry, Nicholas Jenson, p. 191. On the publication of literacy aids, see P. Lucchi, 'La Santacroce, il Salterio e ii Babuino. Libri per imparare a leggere nel primo secolo della stampa', Quaderni storici, 38 (1978), 593-630. 1072
10. DMS, vol. 9, col. 335 (22 November 1509). One bezzo was also the advertised price of a twosheet quarto pamphlet Esortazione al/'imperator Massimiliano printed in Rome in these years, however it was bought by Hernan Colon for only half a quattrino; sec K. Wagner and M. Carrera, Catalogo dei libri a stampa in lingua italiana della Biblioteca Colombina di Siviglia/ Catalogo de los impresos en lengua italiana de la Biblioteca Colombina de Sevilla (Ferrara: Panini, 1991), p. 135, n. 226. 11. Cited in the Introduction, n. 28. 12. Questi sonetti scrissi con sua mano in proposito de ciaschum [sic] amatore ii nobil miser Leonardo Justiniano makes reference to its price of one marchetto, equal to one soldo. Listed in M. Zorzi (ed.), La vita nei libri. Edizioni illustrate a stampa del Quattro e Cinquecento dalla Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice: Edizioni della Laguna, 2003), p. 244. 1l1e pamphlet oration for one so/ do is mentioned in DMS, vol. 7, col. 132 (16 August 1507). 13. Colon first visited Italy in 1512 and acquired dozens of small printed pamphlets of songs, stories, religious orations and many other subjects, many of them printed in Venice, commonly paying between one and two quattrini for a four-leaf quarto. He helpfully annotated many of his texts with the price, date and place of purchase. See Wagner and Carrera, Catalogo dei libri. 14. P. Pavanini, 'Abitazioni popolari e borghesi nella Venezia cinquecentesca', Studi veneziani, 5 (1981), 71; R. C. Davis, Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal: Workers and Workplace in the Preindustrial City (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 103. 15. M. Sanudo, 'Praise of the city of Venice', in D. Chambers and B. Pullan (eds), Venice: A Documentary History 1450-1630 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 13. 16. D. Romano, 'The gondola as a marker of station in Venetian society', Renaissance Studies, 8:4 (1994), 361. 17. On the compositor's wage, see Lowry, Nicholas Jenson, p. 186; on the shop assistant's (1567), Mackenney, Tradesmen and Traders, p. 95. These wages are comparable with those of a worker in the building industry who earned around twenty so/di a day or a master builder earning around thirty soldi (in 1551-65): B. Pullan, 'Wage-earners and the Venetian economy, 1550-1630', Economic History Review, 16:3 (1964), 415. 18. G. Padoan, 'La commedia rinascimentale a Venezia dalla sperimentazione umanistica alla commedia "regolarc"', in G. Arnaldi and M. Pastore Stocchi (eds), Storia della cultura veneta (Viccnza: Neri Pozza, 1981), p. 399. 19. By the time of the Interdict crisis of 1606-07, small polemical pamphlets were selling for around four soldi each, which De Vivo concludes brought them within reach of a great many readers indeed' (Information and Communication, pp. 226-7). 20. Print runs could vary greatly, from a couple of hundred to many thousands for some indulgences, for example. L. Baldacchini, 'I centri di produzione', pp. 503-4, suggested an estimate of 1,000 copies for Italian sixteenth-century books and ephemera, while N. Cannata, II canzoniere a stampa (1470-1530). Tradizione e fortuna di un genere fra storia del libro e letteratura (Rome: Bagatto, 2000), p. 9, suggested c.850 copies on average for small books of verse. Pedlars commissioned runs of 500 to 1,000 pamphlets and broadsides from the Ripoli press in Florence (discussed in Chapter 3) in the 1480s; sec M. Conway, The Diario of the Printing Press of San Jacopo di Ripoli, 1476-1484: Commentary and Transcription (Florence: Olschki, 1999). 21. On the use of images that did not illustrate the text, see M. Rothstein, 'Disjunctive images in Renaissance books', Renaissance and Reformation, 14:2 (1990), 101-20. For a sensitive analysis of the interaction of texts and images in early cheap print, sec Petrella, Fra testo e immagine. 22. Carnclos, I libri da risma, p. 13; M. I. Palazzolo, 'Banchi, botteghc, muricciuoli. Luoghi e figure del commcrcio dcl libro a Roma ncl setteccnto', in Editoria e istituzioni a Roma tra settecento e ottocento. Saggi e documenti (Rome: Archivio Guido Izzi, 1994),p. 10. 1073
23. P. F. Grendler, 'Form and function in Italian Renaissance popular books', Renaissance Quarterly, 46:3 (1993), 476-8. 24. Niccoli, 'Italy', p. 189. 25. See Chapter 3 for these examples, and on the relationship between cheap print and performance. Sec also the portrait of the buffoon Zuan Polo from his Libero del Rado Stixoso (1533) reproduced in R. Henke, Performance and Literature in the Commedia dell'arte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 53. 26. E. Celebrino, Questa e lo modo da guarir del mal francioso nova, & vechio, occulto, & palese, piaghe, doglie, braze, & gomme con Ia purgatione, & oncione cosa excellentissima, & piu volte experimentata ... (V cnice: G. A. Niccolini da Sabbio, 1526), BGC 998. Niccoli, 'Italy', p. 190. 27. 'Basta loro col titolo solo movervi l'appctito al comprarla, quando da qualchc forfantello fanno per le vie et per le piazzc gridarc, "Opera nova novamcntc stampata! Compratcla, gentilhomini, qucsta bella legenda nova!'" (G. Landi, Formaggiata, cited in L. Severi, Sitibondo nel stampar de' libri: Niccolo Zoppino tra Ii bro volgare, letteratura cortigiana e questione della lingua (Manziana: Vecchiarelli, 2009), pp. 42-3). 28. Niccoli, 'Italy', p. 190. 29. On the performance of works to familiar tunes, see B. Wilson, Singing Poetry in Renaissance Florence: The Cantasi come Tradition (1375-1550) (Florence: Olschki, 2009), p. 9; C. Marsh, 'The sound of print in early modern England: the broadside ballad as song', in ). Crick and A. Walsham (eds), The Uses of Script and Print, 1300-1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 171-90. 30. B. Richardson, 'Print or pen? Modes of written publication in sixteenth-century Italy', Italian Studies, 59 (2004), 43. 31. On the intimate use of printed ephemera, see E. Barbieri, 'Per il Vangelo di S. Giovanni e qualche altra edizione di S. Jacopo a Ripoli', Italia medioevale et umanistica, 43 (2002), 384-5; Arcford, The Viewer and the Printed Image. 32. Carnelos, I libri da risma. On the blurred edges of this category, see Braida, 'Gli studi italiani sui "libri per tulli"', pp. 331-2. 33. 'Non si comprehendono pero sotto el presente ordine le cose minute, che si vcndcssero fino alla summa de soldi 10 l'una' (ASV, ST, r. 29, cc. 129v-130' (4 June 1537)). 34. Eisenstein, Printing Press, vol. 1, p. 50. Sec also her recent Divine Art, Infernal Machine; and B. Richardson, 'The debates on printing in Renaissance Italy', La Bibliofilia, 100 (1998), 135-55. 35. As A. Petrucci has noted, small printed books descended from what he calls libri da bisaccia, simple, pocket-sized manuscripts often written in the vernacular and carried in the sacks of travelling preachers, merchants and artisans before the invention of print. However, as Petrucci acknowledges, print allowed for an inordinately greater proliferation of works of this kind, reaching a much wider audience. See his 'Alie origini del libro moderno. Libri da banco, libri da bisaccia, libretti da mano', Italia medioevale e umanistica, 12 (1969), 301-2. 36. See F. de Strata, Polemic against Printing, ed. M. Lowry, trans. S. Grier (Birmingham: Hayloft, 1986) [unpaginated]. 37. Ibid. On de Strata's criticisms, see Lowry, World of Aldus Manutius, pp. 26-7. 38. 'Scriptura est equidem veneranda, bonisque ferenda I Nobilior cunctis, quae nobis congeral aurum, / Ni sit prostibulo stamparum turpia passa. I Est virgo haec penna: meretrix est stampificata' (de Strata, Polemic against Printing). 39. See. N. Zemon Davis, 'Beyond the market: books as gifts in sixteenth-century France', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 33 (1983), 69-88. 40. L. Jardine, Erasmus, Man of Letters: The Construction of Charisma in Print (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). 1074
41. D. Erasmus, Erasmus on his Times: A Shortened Version of the 'Adages' of Erasmus, ed. M. Mann Phillips (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), p. 9, from his explication of the adage 'Festina lente' (Hasten slowly), Aldo's mollo. 42. Ibid., pp. 10-12. 43. See Chapter 5 on the establishment of the guild. 44. See A. Zannini, 'II "pregiudizio meccanico" a Venezia in eta moderna. Significato e trasformazione di una frontiera sociale', in M. Meriggi and A. Pastore (eds), Le regale dei mestieri e delle professioni (secoli XV-XIX) (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2000), pp. 36-51; A. Cowan, "'Not carrying out the vile and mechanical arts": touch as a measure of social distinction in early modern Venice', in A. Cowan and J. Steward (eds), The City and the Senses: Urban Culture since 1500 (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 39-59. 45. A. F. Doni, A Discussion about Printing which Took Place at 'I Manni' in Florence, trans. D. Brancaleone (Turin: Tallone, 2003), p. 17. Machiavelli's grandson, Giuliano de' Ricci, addressing an academy in Perugia on the evils of the press in 1567, was less equivocal, arguing that printing was an especially ignoble art, 'alle mane di houmini [sic] meno che ordinari et di mercanti vilissimi che non per altro I'han fatta che per guadagnarc' (cited in G. Sapori, 'Giuliano de' Ricci e la polcmica sulla stampa nel Cinquecento', Nuova rivista storica, 56 (1972), 162). 46. 'Non e sporca niente in se stessa, ma netta, et polita' (T. Garzoni, La piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo, ed. G. B. Bronzini (Florence: Olschki, 1996), vol. 2, p. 1020). 47. D. Erasmus, 'Penny-pinching (Opulentia sordida)', in his Colloquies, trans. and annotated by C.R. Thompson, in The Collected Works of Erasmus (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), vol. 40, pp. 979-95. 48. Opera nuova de le malitie che usa ciascheduna arte ... Novamente Stampata ... (Venice: P. Danza, [c.1525]), cc. Ai-iv. BL, 11426.e. The suggestion of date comes from the STC. Another edition of the work is included in a miscellany thought to have been owned and performed by a Roman street singer in this period. See A. M. Adorisio, 'Cultura in lingua volgare a Roma fra Quattro e Cinquecento', in G. de Gregori and M. Valenti (eds), Studi di biblioteconomia e storia de/ libro in onore di Francesco Barberi (Rome: Associazione italiana biblioteche, 1976), p. 32. 49. 'Convien che segua d'alcun stampadore / o ver de quelli che libri venderanno I non dico de tutti dcgno auditore / ma de quelli che usan cotal inganno / e sc tu non apri Ii occhi comperatore / in qualche modo le la caleranno / ma se odientia alquanto me darai / dirote la rason se tu non la fai. // Qualuncha vora libri comparare / convien che habbia mente t'imprometto / di dover in carta in carta guardare / accio non sia caduco nc scoretto Io qualche carta non havesse a mancare Io fusse straciato o qualche difetto / e in le parole mai non le fidare / ch'usanza e la sua roba avantare' (Opera nuova de le malitie ... , c. Aii'). Cartolai (stationers) were accused of selling badly bound and poorly illustrated works. 50. Doni, Dialogue on Printing, pp. 45-6. 51. Garzoni, La piazza universale, vol. 2. On booksellers: 'vendono a' contadini, et a' villani con ciancie quanto di sciocco hanno in bottega, et supra tutto magnificano talhora piu una castroneria composta da un ciavattino, che qualche opera bella, et utile composta da un galanthuomo' (p. 1021). On printers: 'nelle case inutile mettono sovente studio grandissimo, et nelle giovevoli sono scioperati, et negligenti affatto' (p. 1024). 52. Erasmus, Erasmus on His Times, p. 12. 53. Dani, Dialogue on Printing, pp. 32-3. For a similar refrain in a 1590 dialogue, see C. Lucas, 'Vers une nouvelle image de l'ccrivain: Della dedicatione de' libri de Giovanni Fratta', in C. A. Fiorato and J.-C. Margolin (eds), L'ecrivain face ti son public en France et en Italie ti la renaissance (Paris: J. Vrin, 1989), p. 87. More broadly on the sense of 'information overload' in early modern
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Europe, see A. M. Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2010). 54. Doni, Dialogue on Printing, p. 34. According to Giovanni Fratta, 'libri dati a vilissimo pretio sono occasione, che multi, che dovriano attendere alla zappa, c seguir le vestigia de' padri loro, ar<liscano con ogni stravagcnle maniera nulrirsi con la penna' (cited in Lucas, 'Vers une nouvelle image de l'ecrivain', p. 100). Sec also Bonazzi, II carnevale delle idee, pp. 132-5. 55. 'Non sono pii'1 in pregio Ii buoni autori perche il volgo ignorantc va piu drieto a quei libri che trattano di lascivie che a quelli che trattano di continenlia et sobrieta; piu abbraccia quelli che biasimano che quelli che lodano, et ogni vii pedantuzzo vuol mandarc a stampa, et non ci si provvede, et son cagione che si riempie ii mondo di libri liccntiosi cl scelerati' (quoted in Sapori, 'Giuliano de' Ricci', p. 154). 68. 'Non sai; che sono piu le ciurme <lei volgo; che lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;accadcm1e de 1 dott1. (ibid.). Similarly, Doni's character Lollio opined that, 'since the mass of the ignorant is more numerous than the Academy of the erudite, surely those who put just about anything in the press make a bigger profit than do men of discrimination from printing good books' (Dialogue on Printing, p. 45). 69. 'Ci bisogna a questa mensa, d'ogni qualita di carne, per nutrirc Signori, Gcntil'huomini, Donne, lavoratori, contadini, et facchini ... Adunque noi apparccchiaremo, cose dotte, artificiate, mediocri, pure, semplici, et naturali, non voglio dire in tutto goffe. Bisogna adunque, poi che siamo condannati a questo, havere un certo discorso generale, perche ogni so rte di gente, legge ... noi siamo dell a lega de' Predicatori (per non ci mettere nel branco de' ciurmadori) iquali sono ascoltati da tutte l'arti, el i nostri scartabelli son letti da tutte le professioni' (A. F. Doni, La seconda libraria de/ Doni (Venice: Marcolini, 1555), cc. 9-10. BL 27Ib23). On Doni's ambivalent attitude to the proliferation of books in print, particularly well expressed in this preface, sec also ). D. Bradbury, 'Anton Francesco Doni and his Librarie: Bibliographical friend or fiend?', Forum for Modern Language Studies, 45:1 (2009), 90-107. 70. 'Dipoi che questa benedetta stampa e suscitata, la maggior partc dcllc genti tanto huomini quanta donnc sanno leggicrc; et quello che piu importa e che la filosofia e la medicina, e tutte l'altre scientic sono ridottc et stampate in questa nostra lingua materna: di modo che ogni uno ne puo sapcrc la partc sua ... vcdo che la maggior parte, anzi fino allc donnc parlano di filosofia, di mcdicina, di astrologia, di matematica e di quantc scientic sono al mondo scnza esser dottori; et cosi nissuno puo csscr piu gabbato; poi chc ogni uno chc voglia affaticarsi un poco ii cervello, puo csser dotto: w la causa di cio e stata la Stam pa' (L. Fioravanti, Delio specchio di scientia universale ... (Venice: A. Ravenoldo, 1567), c. 62'). 71. 'I gattisini hanno aperti gli occhi perche ciascuno puo vcdere c intcndere ii fatto suo, in modo che noi altri mcdici non possiamo piu cacciar carotte allc genti'. This was added to the 1583 edition of Fioravanti, Delio specchio di scientia universale, c. 41 r-v, cited in P. Camporesi, Camminare il mondo: Vita e avventure di Leonardo Fioravanti, medico del Cinquecento (Milan: Garzanti, 1997), p. 64. For further discussion of this rhetoric about the opening up of knowledge via print, see Chapter 4. 72. 'Avanti a qucsta miracolosa arlc dclla stampa, si trovavano, in comparationc del tempo d'hoggi, molti pochi letterati; il che non derivava d'altro, sc non dalla spcsa de' libri intolcrabile ... La stampa ancora e stata a guisa dell'anello d'Angclica, c'ha rotto gli incanti di molti filosofi antichi, i quali lanto altamente, el profondamente parlavano ... che la povera plebe come incantata, et slordita stava del continua intenla a que' ragionamenti senza moversi pun to ... tutto nascc, et procede dalla stampa, la qualc ha aperto gli occhi a' ciechi, et dato ii lumc agli ignoranti' (Garzoni, La piazza 1miversale, vol. 2, pp. 1022-3).
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73. 'Accio che parimente gli dotti et gl'indotti possino si dell'historie barbarc et csterne, come delle romane havere perfetta cognilione'. This, wrote Zoppino, would allow the unlearned reader to feel at ease among the more educated: 'ritrovandoti poi fra huomini saputi et dotti, anchor tu possi alcuna volta parlare, et disputare dellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;historic greche et latme (M. I. Iustmus, Justino Historico Clarissimo ... , cited in Severi, Sitibondo nel stampar de' libri, p. 390). For more examples, see ibid., pp. 55-69. 74. 'Conossendo molti bisognosi a commune utilita e massime delli poveri del mio redemptore Iesu Christo molto piu volentieri queste fatiche fidelmente traducendo ho falte acio anchora quelli che non hanno la lingua Latina possino da per se Ii secreti della natura intendere' (Herbolario volgare. Nel quale le virtu delle herbe e molti altri simplici se dechiarano con a Jeune belle aggionte novamente de latino in volgare tradotto (Venice: Alessandro Bindoni, 1522), c. Ai". BL 453.c.8). 75. 'Spinto de caritade ho voluto stampare questa operetta, accioche la ditta sia causa della salute de infiniti poveri infetti del mal francioso, quali non havendo il modo, ne Ia facultade, a supplimento di medici, e medicine, possano da se medesmi cum poco dispendio in breve tempo da tanta egrirudine [sic], e incendio liberarsi' (Celebrino, Questa e lo modo ... , c. Aiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;). 76. 'Con grandissimasua utilitade esatisfatione de I'animo, si al sexo masculino quanto al feminino si ali spiriti gentili quanli ali rozi sempre tal thesauro sera guida et a quello timone' (G. A. Tagliente, Lo presente libro insegna la vera arte de lo Excellente scrivere ... Con la presente opera ognuno le potra imparare impochi giorni per lo amaistramento ragioni, essempi, come qui seguente vedrai ([Venice], 1525), c. 40", BL C.31.f.7). On Tagliente, see A. J. Schutte, 'Teaching adults to read in sixteenth-century Venice: Giovanni Antonio Tagliente's Libra maistrevole', Sixteenth Century Journal, 17:1 (1986), 3-16. 77. 'Quelle che per sua so rte di patre et matre di non tan ta conditione sono nasciute, et altre d'infimo grado, con le vivande di questo mio delicatissimo Convivio per Ia virtu loro non invidiano quelle che non miglior fortuna in quanto a' beni temporali sono nate et cresciute, anzi possano andare altere, gloriandosi che quelle di tanta altezza senze le virtu di sue mani nobilitar si possano, ne tra le nobile comparere' (Convivio delle belle donne ... , cited in Severi, Sitibondo nel stampar de' libri, p. 395). On the new public of women readers, see T. Plebani, II 'genere' dei libri. Storie e rappresentazioni della lettura al femminile e al maschile tra medioevo e eta moderna (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2001); M. P. Donato and X. von Tippelskirch, "'II tanto leggere mi fa doler la testa". Appunti sulle lettrici alla soglia del pubblico', in B. Borello (ed.), Pubblico e pubblici di antico regime (Pisa: Pacini, 2009), pp. 1-20. 78. On the genre of instructional manuals, see R. M. Bell, How to Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance Italians (Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 79. Opera noua che insegna a parecchiar una mensa a vno conuito . .. Intitulata Refetorio ... (Cesena, [1527]); Formulario de lettere amorose, intitulato Chiaue damore (Venice: F. Bindoni and M. Pasini, 1527); Il modo d'imparare di scriuere lettera merchantescha ... composto per lo ingenioso maistro Eustachio Cellebrino ... ([Venice], 1525); Opera noua piaceuole la quale insegna di far varie compositioni odorifere per far bella ciascuna dona et etiam agiontoui molti secreti necessarii alla salute humana ... (Venice: F. Bindoni and M. Pasini, 1526); Regimento mirabile, et verissimo a conseruar la sanita in tempo di peste ... intitulato Optima remedio de sanita (Cesena: H. Soncino, 1527). 80. On Zoppino's reformist religious leanings, expressed in his publications of Erasmian and Lutheran works, see Severi, Sitibondo nel stampar de' libri, pp. 67-85, and my discussion in Chapter 4. More generally, see M. Firpo, 'Riforma religiosa e lingua volgare nell'Italia del '500', Belfagor, 57:5 (2002), 517-39. 81. See G. Savonarola, Triumpho della croce di Christo volgare ... (Venice: F. Bindoni and M. Pasini, 1535), c. Aiv. BL 3901aaa71. 1077
82. 'Perche 'I vulgo gusti questi frutti I di latini in vulgar gli abian tradutti' (Psalmi poenitentiales (Venice: A. Calabrensis, c. 1490), cited in R. Rusconi, 'Pratica culturale ed istruzione religiosa nelle confraternite italiane de! tardo medioevo: "libri di compagnia" e libri di pieta', in Le mouvement confraternel au Mayen Age: France, Italie, Suisse (Geneva: Droz, 1987), p. 138). 83. â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;te lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ho messe in versi per amore / che sono a qualchedun piu dilettose / poi tal potra quest'opera tenere / che non puo la gran Bibia in casa avere' (cited in P. Farenga, 'Giuliano Dati', in DBI, vol. 33, p. 33). 84. 'E perche non potra venire al pasco di quel nostro gran Giesu Christo il mendicante, il fabbro, il contadino, il muratore, il pescatore, i pubblicani et tulle le conditioni degli huomini, et de le donne' (Brucioli's 1538 edition, dedicated to Anna d'Este, quoted in G. Spini, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma: Antonio Brucioli (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1940), pp. 216-17). 85. The papal nuncio Girolamo Aleandro in 1534 lamented the circulation of heretical books and ideas in Venice, noting that 'di parlarse etiam tra artegiani et vil canaglia della fede el sacramenti per ogni canton e cosa publica' (F. Gaeta (ed.), Nunziature di Venezia. Vol. 1 (12 marzo 1533-14 agosto 1535) (Rome: Istituto storico italiano per l' eta moderna e contemporanea, 1958), p. 177). See also Firpo, 'Riforma religiosa', 534. 86. Doni, Dialogue on Printing, pp. 34, 36-7. 87. L. Domenichi, Dialoghi di m. Lodouico Domenichi ... (Venice: G. Giolito, 1562), cc. 389-90. BMV C068C197. Coccio: 'Non vi pare egli cosa infame, e vituperosa, che si leggano a stampa tante dishonesla, come noi veggiamo? Non havete voi Jello, o veduto al meno la Priapea del Franco, la Cortigiana con le figure, e mille altrc opere lascive ... E impossibilc, che voi passando dalle librarie di questa citta, non habbiate vcduto su per Ii banchi, a esser lordate dalle mosche, le librcrie, le invellive sporche contra la fama, e l'honor de' virtuosi e buoni, e vivi, e morli, con pessimo, e dannoso cssempio di quelle persone semplici, che a leggerle vi perdono quel tempo'. 88. Sapori, 'Giuliano de' Ricci', 160. 89. See Grendler, Roman Inquisition, pp. 258, 262. Franco's dialogue on bookselling, quoted above, was eventually allowed to circulate in expurgated form. 90. G. C. Croce, La libraria, conuito uniuersale doue s'inuita grandissimo numero di libri, tanto antichi, quanta moderni ... (Ferrara and Bologna, [1592?]). Sec also Croce's Indice uniuersale della libraria, o studio del celebratiss. eccellentiss. eruditiss. et plusquam opulentiss. arcidottor Gratian Furbson da Francolino ... (Ferrara, 1600). See also D. Shemek, 'Books at banquet: commodities, canon and culture in Giulio Cesare Croce's Convito universa/e', Annali d'italianistica, 16 (1998), 89-91. On Doni's works, see Bradbury, 'Anton Francesco Doni'. On the broader sense of a need for order in the world of books from the later sixteenth century, see R. Chartier, The Order of Books (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994).
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