North and South: Cultural Transmission in the Sixteenth-Century European Book World

Abstract

Despite the early enthusiasm for printing, the establishment of the new technology was neither easy nor even. Previous general narratives of print have concentrated on its rapid spread to over 200 centres in every part of Europe; but in fact most of these early ventures were short-lived. This article used the data gathered for the recently launch Universal Short Title Catalogue to chart the contrasting fortunes of publishing north and south of the Alps. It points up the stark contrast that quickly emerged between a core of large publishing centres that dominated, in particular, the production of scholarly literature, and a far less well served European periphery. This understanding of the structural economics and logistics of the trade has significant repercussions for our understanding of how ideas and texts moved around Europe in the age of the Renaissance and Reformation.

Notes

¹‘Alpine Passes’, in Atlas of Mediaeval Europe, ed. Donald Matthew (Oxford: Phaidon, 1983), 78–79; L. N. L. Baker, ‘Mediaeval Trade Routes’, in Social Life in Early England, ed. Geoffrey Barraclough (London: Routledge, 1960), 224–47.

² Andrew Pettegree, ‘Centre and Periphery in the European Book World’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 18 (2008), 101–28.

³ Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale U. P., 2010), 52.

⁴ Martin Lowry, Nicolas Jenson and the Rise of Venetian Publishing in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

⁵ Filippo de Strata, Polemic against Printing, trans. Shelagh Grier, ed. Martin Lowry ([Birmingham]: Hayloft Press, 1986).

⁶ As observed, with evident excitement, by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. See Martin Davies, ‘Juan de Carvajal and Early Printing: The 42-line Bible and the Sweynheym and Pannartz Aquinas’, The Library, 6^th series, 18 (1996), 193–215.

⁷ Neil Harris, ‘Italy’, in The Oxford Companion to the Book, ed. Michael J. Suarez and Henry Woudhuysen, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2009), I, 257–69.

⁸Martin Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius. Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979).

⁹ Pettegree, ‘Centre and Periphery’; Margaret Lane Ford, ‘Importation of Printed Books into England and Scotland’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, III, 1400–1557, ed. Lotte Hellinga and J. B. Trapp (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1999), 179–201; Julian Roberts, ‘The Latin Trade’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, IV, 1557–1695, ed. John Barnard and D. F. McKenzie (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2002), 141–73.

¹⁰ Paul Needham, ‘Venetian Printers and Publishers in the Fifteenth Century’, La Bibliofilia, 100 (1998), 157–200.

¹¹ Adrian Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (Amsterdam: Nico Israel, 1976).

¹² Andrew Pettegree, Malcolm Walsby and Alexander Wilkinson, French Vernacular Books. Books Published in the French Language before 1601/Livres vernaculaires français. Livres imprimés en français avant 1601, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2007) [hereafter FB], 1702–1734.

¹³ FB 1670–1677; FB 3360–3379; A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland: And of English Books Published Abroad, 1475–1640, compiled by William Pollard and Gilbert Redgrave, and revised and enlarged by W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson and Katherine S. Pantzer, 2 vols (London: The Bibliographical Society, 1976–1986) [hereafter STC], 7644–7649; Alexander S. Wilkinson, Iberian Books. Libros ibéricos. Books Published in Spanish Or Portuguese Or on the Iberian Peninsula before 1601. Libros publicados en español o portugués (Leiden: Brill, 2010) [hereafter IB], 1160–1184.

¹⁴ FB 2578–2675.

¹⁵ Index Aureliensis Catalogus Librorum Sedecimo Saeculo Impressorum, 14 vols (Baden-Baden: Koerner, 1962–2004) [hereafter IA], 120.152–120454; IB 2037–2054; Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des XVI. Jahrhunderts, 25 vols (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1983–2000), now online at <https://opacplus.bib-bvb.de/TouchPoint_touchpoint/start.do> [hereafter VD16] B 5812–5846; STC 3183–3184.5. In the English case the early editions were of excerpts only; the first complete English translation was not until 1620 (STC 3172). For the fifteenth-century editions, see the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue [hereafter ISTC], <http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/>.

¹⁶ Andrew Pettegree and Malcolm Walsby, Netherlandish Books. Books Published in the Low Countries and in Dutch Abroad before 1601 (Leiden: Brill, 2010) [hereafter NB], 5271–5281 (Boccaccio).

¹⁷ FB 6014–6140.

¹⁸ Jean Martin. Un traducteur au temps de François I ^er et de Henri II (Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure, 1999). For the later period Jean Balsamo, Rencontre des Muses: italianisme et anti-italianisme en France à la fin du XVI ^e siècle (Genève: Droz, 1992).

¹⁹ FB 35750–35784. Discours merveilleux: de la vie, actions et deportements de Catherine de Médicis, Royne-mère, ed. Nicole Cazauran (Genève: Droz, 1995).

²⁰ F. Lesure, Répertoire internationale des sources musicales. Recueils imprimés XVI ^e –XVII ^e siècles. Tom. 1, Liste chronologique (München: G. Henle, 1960). For the later part of the century see particularly Richard J. Agee, The Gardano Music Printing Firms, 1569–1611 (Rochester, NY: Univ. of Rochester Press, 1998).

²¹ Daniel Heartz, Pierre Attaignant: Royal Printer of Music (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1969).

²² Clive Griffin, The Crombergers of Seville. The History of a Printing and Merchant Dynasty (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1988).

²³ Clive Griffin, Journeymen-Printers, Heresy and the Inquisition in Sixteenth-Century Spain (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2005).

²⁴ Klaus Wagner, ‘Le Commerce du livre en France au début du XVI^e siècle d'après les notes manuscrites de Fernando Colomb’, Bulletin du Bibliophile, 2 (1992), 305–29.

²⁵ Ian Maclean, ‘Murder, Debt and Retribution in the Italico-Franco-Spanish Book Trade: The Beraud-Michel-Ruiz Affair, 1586–91’, in his Learning and the European Marketplace: Essays in Early Modern Book History (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 227–72.

²⁶ Henri Lapeyre, Une Famille de marchands: les Ruiz. Contribution à l’étude du commerce entre la France et l'Espagne au temps de Philippe II (Paris: A. Colin, 1955).

²⁷ Malcolm Walsby, The Printed Book in Brittany, 1480–1600 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), chapter 2.

²⁸ Colin Clair, Christopher Plantin (London: Cassell, 1960), 87–104.

²⁹ Jean Peeters-Fontainas, Bibliographie des impressions espagnoles des Pays-Bas méridionaux, 2 vols (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1965).

³⁰ IB 1160, 1164, 1167, 1170–1172 (Ariosto); IB 6927–6930, 6932, 6941–6943 (Erasmus).

³¹ FB 46197–46203 (Rojas); FB 47354–47392 (San Pedro).

³² FB 651–1053; Les Amadis en France au XVI ^e siècle, ed. Nicole Cazauran and Michel Bideaux (Paris: Cahiers Victor Saulnier, 2000); NB 802–886; STC 541–545; VD 16 A 2111–2146; Censimento nazionale delle edizioni italiane del XVI secol. < http://edit16.iccu.sbn.it/web_iccu/imain.htm> [hereafter Edit16], A 1380–1445; IA 214-104.520.

³³ Marvin J. Heller, The Sixteenth-Century Hebrew Book. An Abridged Thesaurus, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 2004), I, 252–53.

³⁴ Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance, 168. In fact, the Crombergers continued to ship large quantities to their readers overseas (Griffin, The Crombergers of Seville, 70, 98, 152–53).

³⁵ STC 12425–12451, 16899.3–16922; A. F. Allison and D. M. Rogers, The Contemporary Printed Literature of the English Counter-Reformation between 1558–1640: An Annotated Catalogue, 2 vols (Brookfield: Scolar Press, 1989–1994).

³⁶ The prestige of Aristotle is reflected in the enormous number of editions published in France—over 1,000 in Latin or Greek, not to mention numerous translations and commentaries. See FB 1740–1808; Edit 16 A 2833–2971; VD 16 A 3279–3641; IA 107.685–108.783. The totals for Germany and Italy should be enhanced by adding their on-line cognates.

³⁷ Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance, chapter 14; Roger French, Medicine before Science. The Business of Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2003); David Wootton, Bad Medicine. Doctors Doing Harm since Hippocrates (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 2006).

³⁸ Paul F. Grendler, The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1977).

³⁹ They are now in Arezzo Public Library, the Biblioteca Città di Arezzo. See Flavia Bruni, ‘La biblioteca di S. Pier Piccolo ad Arezzo: tracce per una ipotesi ricostruttiva’, in Dalla notitia librorum degli inventari agli esemplari: saggi di indagine su libri e biblioteche dai codici Vaticani latini 11266–11326, ed. Rosa Marisa Borraccini (Macerata: Edizioni Università di Macerata, 2009), 179–203 (pp. 197–98).

⁴⁰ M. A. Shaaber, Check-List of Works of British Authors Printed Abroad, in Languages Other Than English, to 1641 (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1975), M 220–246; STC 18094.

⁴¹ See Netherlandish Books.

⁴² NB 6382–6396; Albert Labarre, Bibliographie du dictionarium d'Ambrogio Calepino (1502–1779) (Baden-Baden: Koerner, 1975) ; F. Claes, Lijst van Nederlandse woordenlijsten en woordenboeken gedrukt tot 1600 (Nieuwkoop: De Graaf, 1974).

⁴³ Noël de Berlaimont, Dictionarium quatuor linguarum (Louvain, Bartholomaeus Gravius, 1546); Vocabulaer in vier spraken (Louvain, Bartholomaeus Gravius, 1551); Vocabulaire, colloques ou dialogues en quatre langues flamen, francois, espaignol & italien (Antwerpen: Joannes Withagius, 1562), with numerous reprints: NB 3431, 3433, 3439–3452.

⁴⁴ NB 12297.

⁴⁵ <http://www.ustc.ac.uk/>.