Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

Italy.

It seems probable that the book-trade which had been introduced into Gaul from Rome still existed during the sixth century. F. J. Mone finds references to such trade in the chronicles of Cæsarius of Arles.[308] In the code of laws of the Visigoths, it is provided that copies of the volume containing the laws shall be sold at not more than six sols.[309]

Wattenbach is of opinion that not only in Rome but in other Italian centres some fragments of the classic book-trade survived the fall of the Empire and the later invasions and changes of rulers, and he finds references to book-dealers in Italy as late as the sixth century.[310] He takes the ground that, notwithstanding the destruction of buildings, library collections, and in fact of whole cities, during the various contests, first with the Barbarian invaders and later between these invaders themselves, there still remained scholarly people who retained their interest in Latin literature; and he points out that, notwithstanding the many changes in the rulers of Italy between the year 476 and the beginning of the eleventh century, Latin never ceased to remain the official language and, as he maintains, the language of literature.

In the Tetralogus of Wipo are the following lines which have a bearing upon this belief in the continuation of some literary interests in Italy:

Hoc servant Itali post prima crepundia cuncti,

Et sudare scholis mandatur tota juventus.

Solis Teutonicis vacuum vel turpe videtur,

Ut doceant aliquem, nisi clericus accipiatur. [311]

(From their cradle up all Italians pay heed to learning, and their children are kept at work in the schools. It is only among the Germans that it is held to be futile and wrong to give instruction to one who is not to become a cleric.)

Giesebrecht, in his treatise De Litterarum Studiis apud Italos, confirms this view. He refers to a manuscript of Orosius which was written in the seventh century and which contains an inscription stating that this copy of the manuscript was prepared by the scribe in the Statione Magistri Viliaric Antiquarii.

This is one of the earlier examples of the use of the term statio, from which is derived the term stationarii, indicating scribes whose work was done in a specific workshop or headquarters, as contrasted with writers who were called upon to do work at the homes of their clients. As is specified in the chapter on the universities, this term came to be used to designate booksellers (that is to say, producers of books) who had fixed work-shops. In the Acts of the Council of Constantinople, the scribe who wrote out the record of the fifth Synod is described as Theodorus librarius qui habuit stationem ad S. Johannem Phocam.[312]

In such work-shops, while the chief undertaking was the production of books, the scribes were ready to prepare announcements and to write letters, as is even to-day the practice of similar scribes in not a few Italian cities and villages.

From the beginning of the seventh century, Rome was for a considerable period practically the only book market in the world, that is to say, the only place in which books could be obtained on order and in which the machinery for their production continued to exist. In 658, S. Gertrude ordered for the newly founded monastery at Nivelle certain sacred volumes to be prepared in the city of Rome.[313] Beda reports that the Abbot Benedict of Wearmouth, in 671, secured from Rome a number of learned and sacred works, non paucos vel placito pretio emtos vel amicorum dono largitos retulit. (He brought back a number of books, some of which he had purchased at the prices demanded, while others he had received as gifts from his friends.) Later, the Abbot repeated his journeys, and in 678, and again in 685, brought back fresh collections. The collections secured on his last journey included even certain examples of the profane writers.[314]

A similar instance is noted in the chronicles of the monastery of St. Wandrille. The Abbot Wandregisil sent his nephew Godo to Rome in 657, and Godo brought back with him as a present from the Pope Vitalian, not only valuable relics, but many volumes of the sacred Scriptures containing both the New and the Old Testament.[315] During the time of the Abbot Austrulf (747-753) a chest was thrown up by the sea on the shore. It contained relics and also a codicem pulcherrimum, or beautiful manuscript, containing the four gospels, Romana Littera Optime Scriptum.

This term Romana Littera has been previously referred to as indicating a special script which had been adopted in Rome by the earlier instructors for sacred writings.

Alcuin relates of the Archbishop Ælbert of York (766-780):

Non semel externas peregrino tramite terras,

Jam peragravit ovans, Sophiæ deductus amore,

Si quid forte novi librorum seu studiorum,

Quod secum ferret, terris reperiret in illis.

Hic quoque Romuleam venit devotus ad urbem.[316]

(More than once he has travelled joyfully through remote regions and by strange roads, led on by his zeal for knowledge, and seeking to discover in foreign lands novelties in books or in studies which he could take back with him. And this zealous student journeyed to the city of Romulus.)

During the Italian expeditions of the German Emperors, books were from time to time brought back to Germany. Certain volumes referred to by Pez as having been in the Library at Passau, in 1395, contain the inscription isti sunt libri quos Roma detulimus.

Wattenbach finds record of an organised manuscript business in Verona as early as 1338,[317] and of a more important trade in manuscripts being carried on in Milan at the same time. In the fourteenth century, Richard de Bury speaks of buying books for his library from Rome. The references to this early manuscript business in Italy are, however, so fragmentary that it is difficult to determine how far the works secured were the remnants of old libraries or collections, or how far they were the productions of scribe work-shops engaged in manifolding copies for sale.

It seems evident, however, that while a scattered trade in manuscripts was carried on both by the scribes in the towns and between the monastery scriptoria, the facilities for the production and manifolding of manuscript copies were hardly adequate to meet the demand or requirements of readers and students. As early as 250, Origen, writing in Cappadocia, was complaining that he found difficulty in getting his teachings distributed. A zealous disciple, named Ambrosius, secured for the purpose a group of scribes whose transcripts were afterwards submitted to Origen for revision before being sent out through the churches. It is further related that Origen became so absorbed in the work of correcting these manuscripts that he could not be called from his desk either for exercise or for meals.[318] S. Jerome, a century later, when he was sojourning in Bethlehem, found similar difficulty. He had among his monks some zealous scribes, but he complained that their work was untrustworthy.[319]

Abbot Lupus of Ferrières was obliged (in the ninth century) to apply to monks in York in order to secure the transcribing work that he required.

In connection with this difficulty in securing books, it became customary, when copies were loaned from libraries, to secure from the borrower a pledge or security of equal or greater value. The correspondence of the time gives frequent instances of the difficulty in getting back books that had been loaned, notwithstanding the risk of the forfeiture of the pledges. In 1020, Notker writes from St. Gall to the Bishop of Sitten that certain books belonging to the Bishop, for which the Bishop was making demand, had been borrowed by the Abbot Aregia, and that, notwithstanding many applications, he had not succeeded in getting even a promise of their return.[320] In Vercelli, a beautiful mass book which had been loaned by the Abbot Erkenbald of Fulda (997-1011) to the Bishop Henry of Wurzburg, was to have been retained for the term of the Bishop’s life. After the death of the Bishop, reclamation was made from Fulda for the return of the volume, but without success. During the years 1461-1463, the Legate Marinus de Fregeno travelled through Sweden and Norway and collected there certain manuscripts which he claimed were those that had been taken away from Rome at the time of its plunder by the Goths. He evidently took the ground that where books were concerned, a term of one thousand years was not sufficient to constitute a “statute of limitations.”

Louis IX. of France is quoted as having taken the ground that books should be transcribed rather than borrowed, because in that way the number would be increased and the community would be benefited. In many cases, however, there could, of course, be no choice. The King, for instance, desired to possess the great encyclopedia of Vincenzo of Beauvais. He sent gold to Vincenzo, in consideration of which a transcript of the encyclopedia was prepared. The exact cost is not stated.[321]

In 1375, a sum equivalent to 825 francs of to-day was paid for transcribing the commentary of Heinrich Bohic on the Decretals of 1375. In the cost of such work was usually included a price for the loan or use of the manuscript. A fee or rental was, in fact, always charged by the manuscript-dealers. Up to the close of the fourteenth century, the larger proportion of transcripts were prepared for individual buyers and under special orders, one of the evidences of this being the fact that upon the titles of the manuscripts were designed or illuminated the arms or crests of the purchasers. After the beginning of the fifteenth century, there is to be found a large number of manuscripts in which a place has been left blank on the title-pages for the subsequent insertion of the crest or coat-of-arms, indicating that in these instances the manuscript had been prepared for general use instead of under special order.[322]

As already mentioned, Charlemagne interested himself, not only in the training of scribes, but in the collection of books, but he does not appear to have considered it important that the works secured by him should be retained for the use of his descendants, as he gave instructions in his will that after his death the books should be sold.

One of the oldest illuminated Irish manuscripts is that of S. Ceaddæ. This was purchased, at what date is not specified, by some holy man in exchange for his best steed, and was then presented by him to the church at Llandaff. The manuscript finally made its way to Madrid and thence to Stockholm; according to the record, it had, before the purchase above mentioned, been saved out of the hands of Norman pirates.[323] It is certain that very many of the monasteries which were within reach of the incursions of the Normans were bereft by them of such books as had been collected, although it is not probable that, as a rule, the pirates had any personal interest in, or commercial appreciation for, the manuscripts that fell into their hands.

Gerbert, whose literary interests have been previously referred to, and who is described as the most zealous book collector of his time, tells us that he made purchases for his library in Italy, in South Germany, and in the Low Countries, but he does not mention whether he was purchasing from dealers or individuals. He was a native of Auvergne, and in 999 became Pope (under the name of Gregory V.). Abbot Albert of Gembloux, who died in 1048, states that he brought together, at great cost, as many as one hundred and fifty manuscripts.[324]

A certain Deopert records that he purchased for the monastery of St. Emmeran, from Vichelm, the chaplain of Count Regimpert, for a large sum of money (the price is not specified), the writings of Alcuin.[325]

Notwithstanding the very strict regulations to the contrary, it not unfrequently happened that monasteries and churches, when in special stress for money, pledged or sold their books to Jews. As the greater proportion at least of the sacred writings of the monasteries would have had no personal interest for their Hebrew purchasers, it is fair to assume that these were taken for re-sale, and that, in fact, there came to be a certain trade in books on the part of financiers acting in the capacity of pawn-brokers. In 1320, the monastery of S. Ulrich was in need of funds, and the Abbot Marquard, of Hagel, pawned to the mendicant monks a great collection of valuable books, among which were certain volumes that had been prepared as early as 1175 under the directions of the Abbot Heinrich. The successor of Marquard, Conrad Winkler, in 1344, succeeded in getting back a portion of the books, by the payment of 27 pounds heller, and 15 pfennigs.[326] Instances like these give evidence that a certain trade in manuscript books, in Northern Europe at least, preceded by a number of years the organisation of any systematised book-trade.

Kirchhoff speaks of usurers, dealers in old clothes, and pedlars, carrying on the trade in the buying and selling of books during the first half of the fifteenth century. In Milan, a dealer in perfumery, Paolino Suordo, included in his stock (in 1470) manuscripts for sale, and later announced himself as a dealer in printed books. Both in England and France at this time manuscripts were dealt in by grocers and by the mercers. The monastery of Neuzelle, in 1409, pawned several hundred manuscripts for 130 gulden, and the monastery at Dobrilugk, in 1420, sold to the Prebendary of Brandenburg 1441 volumes.

In 1455, the Faculty of Arts of the University of Heidelberg bought valuable books from the estate of the Prior of Worms. In 1402, the cathedral at Breslau rented a number of books from Burgermeister Johann Kyner, for which the Chapter was to pay during the lifetime of said Kyner a yearly rental of eight marks, ten groschens.[327]

The Bishop of Speier rented to the precentor of the cathedral in 1447 some separately written divisions of the Bible, which were to be held by the precentor during his lifetime only, and were then to be returned to the Bishop’s heirs. The rental is not mentioned. The Chapter of the Cathedral of Basel arranged to take over certain books from the owner or donor, whose name is not given, and to pay as consideration for the use of the same, each year on the anniversary of the gift, 16 sols.[328]

Richard de Bury makes a reference to the book-trade of Europe, as it existed in the fourteenth century, as follows:

Stationariorum ac librariorum notitiam non solum intra natalis soli provinciam, sed per regnum Franciæ, Teutoniæ et Italiæ comparavimus dispersorum faciliter pecunia prævolante, nec eos ullatenus impedivit distantia neque furor maris absterruit, nec eis æs pro expensa defecit, quin ad nos optatos libros transmitterent vel afferrent.[329]

(By means of advance payments, we have easily come into relations with the stationarii and librarii who are scattered through our native province, and also with those who are to be found in the kingdoms of France, Germany, and Italy; and neither the great distances, nor the fury of the sea, nor lack of money for their expenses has been permitted to prevent them from bringing or sending to us the books that we desired.)

In the same work, De Bury uses the term bibliator, which he afterwards explained as being identical with bibliopole,—a seller of books.

The record of the production of books that was carried on in the earlier universities, such as Bologna and Padua, is presented in the chapter on the universities.

In connection with the very special requirements of the earlier Italian universities, and with the close control exercised by them over the scribes, it is evident that a book-trade in the larger sense of the term could not easily come into existence. The first records of producers and dealers of books of a general character were to be found, not in the university towns, but in Milan, Florence, and particularly in Venice. In 1444, a copy of Macrobius was stolen from the scholar Filelfi, or Philelphus, which copy he recovered, as he tells us, in the shop of a public scribe in Vincenza.

Blume mentions that in Venice the Camaldulensers of S. Michael in Murano carried on during the earlier part of the fifteenth century an important trade in manuscripts, including with the older texts verified copies which had been prepared under their own direction.[330] The headquarters, not only for Italy but for Europe, of the trade of Greek manuscripts, was for a number of years in Venice, the close relations of Venice with Constantinople and with the East having given it an early interest in this particular class of Eastern productions.

Joh. Arretinus was busied in Florence between the years 1375 and 1417 in the sale of manuscripts, but he appears to have secured these mainly not by production in Florence, but by sending scribes to the libraries in the monasteries and elsewhere to produce the copies required.

A reference in a letter of Leonardo Bruni, written in 1416, gives indication of an organised book-trade in Florence at that time:

Priscianum quem postulas omnes tabernas librarias perscrutatus reperire nondum potui.[331] (I have hunted through all the book-shops, but have not been able to find the Priscian for which you asked.)

Bruni writes again concerning a certain Italian translation of the Bible that he had been trying to get hold of:

Jam Bibliothecas omnes et bibliopolas requisivi ut si qua veniant ad manus eligam quæque optima mihi significent. (I have already searched all the libraries and book-shops in order to select from the material at hand the manuscripts which are for me the most important.)

Ambrogio Traversari wrote in 1418 in Florence:

Oro ut convenias bibliopolas civitatis et inquiri facias diligenter, an inveniamus decretales in parvo volumine.[332] (I beg you to make search among the booksellers of the city and ascertain whether it is possible to secure in a small volume a copy of the Decretals.)

The use for book-dealers of the old classic term bibliopola in place of the more usual stationarius is to be noted.

From these references, we have a right to conclude that there were during the first quarter of the fifteenth century in Florence a number of dealers in books who handled various classes of literature.

The great publisher of the fifteenth century, Philippi Vespasianus, or Vespasiano, who was not only a producer and dealer in manuscripts, but a man possessed of a wide range of scholarship, called himself librarius florentinus. He held the post for a time of bidellus of the University of Florence. His work will be referred to more fully in a later division of this chapter.

Kirchhoff points out that the dealers of this time, among others Vespasiano himself, were sometimes termed chartularii, a term indicating that dealers in books were interested also in the sale of paper and probably of other writing materials. The Italian word cartolajo specifies a paper-dealer or perhaps more nearly a stationer in the modern signification of the term.

The influx of Greek scholars into Italy began some years before the fall of Constantinople. Some of these scholars came from towns in Asia Minor, which had fallen under the rule of the Turks before the capture of Constantinople. When the Turkish armies crossed the Bosphorus, a number of the Greeks seem to have lost hope at a comparatively early date of being able to defend the Byzantine territory, and had betaken themselves with such property as they could save to various places of refuge in the south of Europe, and particularly in Italy. As described in other chapters, many of these exiles brought with them Greek manuscripts, and in some cases these codices were not only important as being the first copies of the texts brought to the knowledge of European scholars, but were of distinctive interest and value as being the oldest examples of such texts in existence.

The larger number of the exiles who selected Italy as their place of refuge found homes and in many cases scholarly occupation, not in the university towns so much as in the great commercial centres, such as Venice and Florence. Many of these Greeks were accepted as instructors in the families of nobles or of wealthy merchants, while others made use of their manuscripts either through direct sale, through making transcripts for sale, or through the loan of the originals to the manuscript-dealers.

A little later these manuscripts served as material and as “copy” for the editions of the Greek classics issued by Aldus and his associates, the first thoroughly edited and carefully printed Greek books that the world had known. It was partly as a cause and partly as an effect of the presence of so many scholarly Greeks, that the study of Greek language, literature, and philosophy became fashionable among the so-called higher circles of Italian society during the last half of the fifteenth century.

The interest in Greek literature had, however, as pointed out, begun nearly twenty-five years earlier. As there came to be some knowledge of the extent of the literary treasures of classic Greece which had been preserved in the Byzantine cities, not a few of the more enterprising dealers in manuscripts, and many also of the wealthier and more enterprising of the scholarly noblemen and merchants, themselves sent emissaries to search the monasteries and cities of the East for further manuscripts which could be purchased.

One reason, apparently, for the preference given by the Greeks to Venice and Florence over Bologna and Padua was the fact that the two great universities were devoted, as we have seen, more particularly to the subjects of law, theology, and medicine, subjects in which the learning of the Greeks could be of little direct service.[333] The philosophy and the poetry which formed the texts of the lectures given by the Greek scholars attracted many zealous and earnest students, but these students came, as stated, largely outside of the university circles. The doctors of law and the doctors of theology were among the last of the Italian scholars to be interested in Homeric poetry or in the theories of the Greek metaphysicians.

Towards the middle of the fifteenth century and a few years before the introduction of printing, a new term came to be used for dealers in manuscripts. The scribes had in many cases naturally associated their business interests with those of the makers of paper,—cartolaji, and the latter name came to be applied not only to the paper manufacturers, but to the purchasers of the paper upon which books were inscribed. In some cases the paper-makers, or cartolaji, appear themselves to have organised staffs of scribes through whose labour their own raw material could be utilised, while the name of paper-maker,—cartolajo, came to be used to describe the entire concern.

After the introduction into Italy of printing, the association of the paper-makers with books became still more important, and not a few of the original printer-publishers were formerly paper manufacturers, and continued this branch of trade while adding to it the work of manufacturing books. Among such paper-making publishers is to be noted Francesco Cartolajo, who was in business in Florence in 1507, and whose surname was, of course, derived from the trade in which his family had for some generations been engaged. Bonaccorsi turned his paper-making establishment in Florence into a printing-office and book manufactory as early as 1472, and Montali, in Parma, took the same course in 1482; Di Sasso who, in 1481, came into association with the Brothers Brushi, united his printing-office with their paper factory.

Fillippo Giunta, one of the earlier publishers in Florence, calls himself librarius et cartolajus. It is possible that he reversed the business routine above referred to, and united a paper factory with his printing-office.

One result of the influx of Greek scholars, many of whom were themselves skilled scribes while others brought with them scribes, was the multiplying of the number of writers available for work and a corresponding reduction in the cost of such work.

The effect of this change in the business conditions was to lessen the practice of hiring manuscripts for a term of days or weeks, or of dividing manuscripts into pecias, and to increase the actual sale of works in manuscripts.

The university regulations, however, controlling the loaning of manuscripts and of the pecias appear to have been continued and renewed through the latter half of the fifteenth century, that is to say, not only after the trade in manuscripts, at popular prices, had largely developed in cities like Florence, Venice, and Milan, but even after the introduction of printing. It would almost seem as if in regard to books in manuscript, the system which had been put into shape by the university authorities had had the effect of delaying for a quarter of a century or so the introduction into Bologna and Padua of the methods of book production and book distribution which were already in vogue in other cities of Italy. I do not overlook the fact that there was in Florence also a university, but it is evident that the book-trade in that city had never been under the control of the university authorities, and that the methods of the dealers took shape rather from the general, common-sense commercial routine of the great centre of Italian trade than from the narrow scholastic theories of the professors of law or of theology.

During the twenty-five years before the art of printing, introduced into Italy in 1464, had become generally diffused, the years in which the trade in manuscripts was at its highest development, Florence succeeded Venice as the centre of this trade, both for Italy and for Europe.

The activity of the intellectual life of the city, and the fact that its citizens were cultivated and that its scholars were so largely themselves men of wealth, the convenient location of the city for trade communications with the other cities of Italy and with the great marts in the East, in the West, and in the North, and the accumulation in such libraries as those of the Medici of collections, nowhere else to be rivalled, of manuscripts, both ancient and modern, united in securing for Florence the pre-eminence for literary production and for literary interests.

Scholars, not only from the other Italian cities, but from France, Germany, and Hungary, came to Florence to consult manuscripts which in many cases could be found only in Florence, or to purchase transcripts of these manuscripts, which could be produced with greater correctness, greater beauty, and smaller expense by the librarii of Florence than by producers of books in any other city. After the Greek refugees began their lecture courses, there was an additional attraction for scholars from the outer world to visit the Tuscan capital.

The wealthy scholars and merchant princes of Florence, whose collections of manuscripts were given to the city during their lifetime, or who left such collections after their death to the Florentine libraries, made it, as a rule, a condition of such gifts and such bequests that the books should be placed freely at the disposal of visitors desiring to make transcripts of the same. Such a condition appears in the will of Bonaccorsi,[334] while a similar condition was quoted by Poggio[335] in his funeral oration upon Niccolo d’ Niccoli, as having been the intention of Niccolo for the books bequeathed by him to his Florentine fellow-citizens.

Foreign collectors who did not find it convenient themselves to visit Florence, such as the Duke of Burgundy, and Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, kept employed in the city for a number of years scribes engaged in the work of preparing copies of these Florentine literary treasures for the libraries of Nancy and of Buda-Pesth.

Matthias was, it seems, not content with ordering the transcripts of the works desired by him, but employed a scholarly editor, resident in Florence, to supervise the work and to collate the transcripts with the originals, and who certified to the correctness of the copies forwarded to Buda.[336] At the death of Matthias, there appear to have been left in Florence a number of codices ordered by him which had not yet been paid for, and these were taken over by the Medici.[337]

In a parchment manuscript of the Philippian orations is inscribed a note by a previous owner, a certain Dominicus Venetus, to the effect that he had bought the same in Rome from a Florentine bookseller for five ducats in gold in 1460.[338] Dominicus goes on to say that he had used this manuscript in connection with the lectures of the learned Brother Patrus Thomasius.

During the thirteenth century, there was a considerable development in the art of preparing and of illuminating and illustrating manuscripts. One author is quoted by Tiraboschi as saying that the work on a manuscript now required the services not of a scribe, but of an artist. For the transcribing of a missal and illuminating the same with original designs, a monk in Bologna is quoted as having received in 1260 two hundred florins gold, the equivalent of about one hundred dollars. For copying the text of the Bible, without designs, another scribe received in the same year eighty lire, about sixteen dollars.[339]

The work of the manuscript-dealers in Florence was carried on not only for the citizens and sojourners in the city itself, but for the benefit of other Italian cities in which there was no adequate machinery for the manifolding of manuscripts. Bartholomæus Facius, writing from Naples in 1448, speaks of the serious inadequacy of the scribes in that city. There were but few men engaged in the business, and these were poorly educated and badly equipped.[340] Facius was, therefore, asking a correspondent in Florence to have certain work done for him which could not be completed in Naples. Poggio writes from Rome about the same date to Niccolo in Florence to somewhat similar effect. He speaks with envy of the larger literary facilities possessed by his Florentine friends.[341]

Next to Florence, the most important centre for the manuscript trade of North Italy was Milan. As early as the middle of the fourteenth century, there is record of no less than forty professional scribes being at work in the city. Such literary work as was required by Genoa and other Italian towns within reach of the Lombardy capital came to Milan. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, when the population of the city was about 200,000, there had been in the city but two registered copyists. More important, however, than that of either Florence or Milan, was the manuscript trade of Venice, the position of which city gave it exceptional advantages as well for the collection of codices from the East as for securing the services of skilled scribes from Athens or from Constantinople. One of the more noteworthy of the Venetian importers of manuscripts was Johannes Galeotti, a Genoese by birth, who made various journeys to Constantinople, and whose special trade is referred to in an inscription on a manuscript dating from 1450 and containing the speeches of Demosthenes.[342]

Reference has already been made to Aurispa, who appears to have been the most important manuscript-dealer of his time, not only in Venice, but possibly in the world. Aurispa sent various agents to Greece and to the farther East to collect manuscripts and kept scribes busied in his work-shop in Venice in preparing authentic copies of these texts. One of his travellers was Plantinerus, who was sent to the Peloponnesus in 1415, and who succeeded in securing there some valuable codices.[343] Plantinerus found, in executing his commissions, that he had to come into competition with a traveller sent out by Cosimo de’ Medici on a similar errand.

Venice possessed an advantage over the other Italian cities, not only in the collection of texts, and in its facilities for manifolding these, but in its position for securing wide sales for the same in the cities outside of Italy, with which it was, in connection with its active commerce, in regular relations. The lines of the Oxford printers, Theo. Rood and Thomas Hunt, printed in their edition of the Letters of Phalaris, give an indication of the relations of the English university in the early part of the fifteenth century with the literary marts of Southern Europe.

Celatos, Veneti, nobis transmittere libros

Cedite, nos aliis vendimus, O Veneti—[344]

(If you Venetians will send over to us the books which have been hidden (i. e. difficult or rare books, or possibly books unearthed from far off Eastern regions) we will find sale for the same.)

There is evidence in fact of a very active book-trade between Venice and England for many years before the introduction into Italy of the printing-press. The work of Aldus and of those who were associated with him in carrying on printing and publishing undertakings in Venice naturally very largely extended these relations with the English scholars, but the channels for the same had already been opened. The manuscript-dealers in Venice fixed their place of business in the most frequented parts of the city—the Bridge of the Rialto, and the Plaza of S. Mark.

The trade of the Italian dealers in manuscripts was not brought to an immediate close by the introduction of printing. The older scholars still preferred the manuscript form for their books, and found it difficult to divest themselves of the impression that the less costly printed volumes were suited only for the requirements of the vulgar herd. There are even, as Kirchhoff points out,[345] instances of scribes preparing their manuscripts from printed “copy,” and there are examples of these manuscript copies of printed books being made with such literalness as to include the imprint of the printer.

The work of Aldus (continued with scholarly enterprise later by such men as Froben of Basel and Estienne of Paris) in the printing of Greek texts, although begun as early as 1495, and although exercising a very wide influence upon the distribution of Greek literature, was insufficient to supply the eager demand of the scholars, while not many other printers were, in the early years of the exercise of the art, prepared to incur the very considerable risk and expense required for the production of Greek fonts of type. The risk was, of course, by no means limited to the cost of the type; the printers of the earlier Greek books had themselves but slight familiarity with the literature of Greece, and they were obliged in many cases to confide the selection and the editing of their texts to editors to whom this literature was very largely still a novelty. The printers hardly knew what books to select and they had no adequate data upon which to base business calculations as to the extent of the demand that could be looked for for any particular book. The feeling that they were working in the dark was, therefore, a very natural one.

It was on this ground that, while printing-presses were, during the century after 1450, multiplying rapidly through Europe, the printing of Greek books continued to be for a large portion of the period an exceptional class of undertakings, and work was still found for scribes who could be trusted to make accurate transcripts of Greek codices.

Kirchhoff gives the names of the following Italian manuscript-dealers and scribes whose scholarly activity during the latter half of the fifteenth century was especially important: Antonius Dazilas, Cæsar Strategus, Constantius Librarius, Andreas Vergetius, and Antonius Eparchus. The latter made various journeys to the East in search of manuscripts. The fact that the dealers in manuscripts very rarely placed their own names on the copies of the texts sent out from their work-shops has, in a large number of cases, prevented these names from being preserved for future record. The names that have come into record are in the main such as have been referred to in the correspondence of their scholarly friends and clients. I quote a few of these references from the lists given by Kirchhoff:

In Bologna the oldest librarius whose work is referred to is Viliaric, who was called an antiquarius, and whose shop was open in the beginning of the thirteenth century. In a manuscript, previously referred to, containing a treatise of Paul Orosius, originally written in the seventh century, and from which this copy was transcribed early in the thirteenth, there is at the end an inscription, as follows:

Confectus codex in statione magistri Viliaric antiquarii,

Ora pro me scriptore, sic dominum habeas protectorem.[346]

(This codex was completed in the stall of Master Viliaric, bookseller; pray for (the soul of) me, the scribe, and you shall have the Lord for your protector.)

This codex seems to have been prepared, according to the usual university practice, for hire, as on the sixteenth page there is noted the memorandum, “this quaternio has five sheets.”

In 1247, Nicolaus is recorded as being the stationarius universitatis, and in the same year a certain Johannes Cambii is recorded as a stationarius librorum; and Minghinus as a stationarius peciarum. Here we have in one year record of three classes of scribes being at work. They were all noted as being doctors of the law, and they all appear on the list of persons exempt from military service.

Later in the same century, a certain Cervotti, who had inherited from a deceased brother a collection of books, undertook to use these for profit by offering them for hire. The list of the books, drawn up by the notary Noscimpax, has been preserved, and includes twenty different works. Certain of these are collections of the university lectures in the Faculty of law, and the others have also, in the main, to do with the subject of jurisprudence. The first book on the list is Diversitates Dominorum, and the last Margarita Gallacerti, which latter does not appear properly to belong to the subject of jurisprudence.

In the year 1400, there is reference to a scribe named Moses and specified as a Jew, which, in view of the university regulations previously referred to prohibiting the sale of books by Jews or to Jews, is noteworthy.

The entry appears at the close of a manuscript of Bartholomæus Brixiensis:

Emi hunc librum anno domini MCCCC die XXI. Mensis novembris a Moysi Judeo pro viii. florenes.

Kirchhoff is of opinion that Moses must have been a travelling pedlar, as it is difficult to believe that a Jew could have at that time secured the post of a licensed university scribe.[347]

In Verona, there is reference to a certain Bonaventura, who is recorded as a scriptor, and who seems to have occasionally utilised for his manuscript work the hand of a woman. An inscription on one of the manuscripts by Bonaventura, quoted by Endlicher, reads as follows:

Dextra scriptoris careat gravitate doloris.

Detur pro penna scriptori pulchra puella.[348]

In Florence, the earliest librarius of note was probably Johannes Aretinus, whose work continued during the years between 1375-1417. Ambrosius Camaldulensis, who had so much to do with books and with literature, takes pains, in a letter written in 1391, to send a cordial greeting to the librarius Aretinus.[349] Bandini prints a letter of Petrarch’s in which the latter refers to Aretinus as a friend for whom he has a high regard and as a man of exceptional knowledge and clearness of insight, and specifies, as works that he valued highly, nine manuscripts which had been written by the hand of Aretinus. These included Aristotle’s treatise on Ethics, several Essays of Cicero, the Histories of Livy, Cicero’s Orations, Barbari on Marriage, etc.

Kirchhoff gives a list of fourteen other Florentine librarii, whose work extended over the years between 1410 and 1480. The latter date is sixteen years later than the introduction of the printing-press into Italy.

The most noteworthy by far of these manuscript-dealers of Florence was Philippi Vespasiano, who has been previously referred to, and who is to be ranked not only as the most important publisher of the manuscript period, but as one of the great scholars of his time, and as a man whose friendship was cherished by not a few of the leaders of thought during the earlier period of the Renaissance. In one of the Florentine collections has been preserved a number of letters written to Vespasiano by his scholarly friends between the years 1446 and 1463, and these letters show how honoured a position he held in the generation of his time. He was, in fact, in character and in ambition, as well as in the nature of his work, a worthy predecessor of Aldus, and he lived long enough himself to have seen some of the productions of the Aldine Press.

In his earlier years, Vespasiano was for a time secretary to Cardinal Branda in Rome, and it is during this time that he devoted himself earnestly to classic studies. It was while he was in Rome that he began work upon a literary undertaking of his own, which comprised a series of Memoirs of the noteworthy men of his time with whom he had come into relations. The Medici, Duke Borso of Ferrara, and other of the scholarly nobles made large use of Vespasiano’s collections of manuscripts and facilities for producing authentic transcripts.

He was one of the Italian dealers whose agents were actively at work in Greece and in Asia Minor in the collecting of manuscripts, and the clients to whom he supplied such manuscripts included correspondents in Paris, Basel, Vienna, and Oxford.

In the Bodleian Library in Oxford is a codex containing certain works of Cyprian, on the first sheet of which is inscribed:

Vespasianus librarius Florentinus hunc librum Florentiæ transcribendum curavit. (Vespasian, a Florentine librarius, had this book transcribed at Florence.)

Another manuscript in the same collection, containing a commentary on some comedies of Terence, is inscribed as follows:

Vespasianus librarius Florentinus fecit scribi Florentiæ. (Vespasian, a Florentine librarius, had this book written in Florence.)

Both codices are beautiful examples of the best manuscript work of the period.[350]

There are various references of the time showing that manuscripts which bore the stamp of Vespasiano were not only beautiful in their form, but possessed probably a higher authority than the work of any other manuscript-dealer of the age for completeness and for accuracy. He took contracts for the production of great libraries, and it is recorded that, in preparing for Cosimo de’ Medici a collection of two hundred works, he employed forty-five scribes for a term of twenty-two months.[351] Vespasiano died in 1496, one year later than the establishment in Venice of the Aldine Press.

Agnolo da Sandro is described as a bidellus, a manuscript-dealer, in Florence as late as 1498, at which time the trade in manuscripts must already have begun very seriously to diminish. Niccolo di Giunta, who was active in the manuscript trade in Florence towards the end of the fifteenth century, is famous as having been the founder of the family of Giunta or Junta, which later took such an important part in printing and publishing undertakings in Italy.

In Perugia, the first record of a manuscript-publisher bears date as late as 1430. The name is Bontempo, and his inscription appears on a parchment copy of an Infortiatum.

While there are various references to manuscript-dealers in Milan of an early date, the first inscription bears date as late as 1452. The name is Melchoir, who is described as a “dealer of note.” Filelfo speaks of Melchoir as having copies of Cicero’s Letters for sale at ten ducats each.[352]

Paolo Soardo, who was in business between 1470 and 1480, is described as an apothecary and also as a dealer in delicatessen, but he seems to have added to his employment that of a manifolder and seller of manuscripts.

Jacobus Antiquarius speaks of having purchased from Paolo in 1480 a Roman history for the sum of one aureus. In Padua, Jacob, a Jew, succeeded, notwithstanding the university regulations against dealing in manuscripts by Jews, in carrying on between 1455 and 1460 a business in the sale of manuscripts. His inscription appears on a number of classical codices of the time, and in a manuscript of Horace, dating from the twelfth century, the owner makes reference that he purchased the same in 1458 from Jacob, the Hebrew librarius.[353]

The records of Ferrara give the names of Carnerio, bibliopola, and of several others as doing business in manuscripts between 1440 and 1490.

In Rome the records of 1454 speak of Giovanni and Francisco as cartolaji and librarii, that is to say, dealers in paper and also in manuscripts. In that year these dealers had for sale among their things, Letters of Cicero (without which work no well regulated manuscript-dealer’s collection appears to have been complete) and the works of Celsus. A copy of the latter was bought for Vespasiano for the sum of twenty ducats. There is record during the same year of a certain Spannocchia who also had Cicero’s Letters for sale.

In Genoa there were at this time one or two manuscript-dealers, but, as before stated, the readers and scholars of Genoa appear for the most part to have supplied themselves from Florence.

The most important trade in manuscripts during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as was the case during the fifteenth century with the trade in printed books, was carried on in Venice and Florence. As early as 1390 the inscription of Gabriel Ravenna, librarius, appears in a copy of Seneca’s Tragedies.[354] Kirchhoff is of opinion that Gabriel conducted, during the last fifteen years of the fourteenth century, an important work-shop for the production of manuscripts.

A year or two later, occurs the name of Michael, a German librarius, but it is possible that Michael’s work was more nearly that of a secretary than of a manuscript-dealer. As Kirchhoff points out, it is not always easy at this stage of the trade in manuscripts, to distinguish between the inscriptions of the manuscript-dealers certifying to the correctness of the copy sent out from their shops, and the inscriptions of the scribes or secretaries who, having completed for this or that employer specific copies of the works required, added their names as a record on the final sheet.

Reference has already been made to Johannes Aurispa, by far the most important of the manuscript-dealers of his time and possibly of the entire Middle Ages. Aurispa was born in 1369 in Sicily. The earlier years of his life were passed in Constantinople, where he appears to have held a position of some importance in connection with the Court. While in Constantinople, he began to make collections of manuscripts, and he organised there a staff of skilled scribes. In 1423, at the invitation of his friends, Ambrosius Camaldulensis and Niccolo de’ Niccoli, he came to Florence, bringing with him an invaluable collection of 238 manuscripts.

To this store he afterwards added, while in Florence, a further lot of codices which he had had sent from Constantinople to Messina. At this time, his interest in the collection of manuscripts appears to have been a matter of scholarship merely and of sympathy with the efforts of certain Florentine scholars whom he came to know, to secure the material for their classical studies.

Later, however, in connection, doubtless, with the many applications that came to him for transcripts of his codices, he decided to organise a business as a bookseller and publisher. Before taking this course, he had, it appears, sought a position as instructor, first in Florence and afterwards in Bologna and in Ferrara, but had not succeeded in finding the kind of a post that suited him.

Part of the evidence of his change of mind comes to us through letters from Filelfo, whose keen scholarly interest brought him into close relations with men having to do with literary production. Filelfo writes to Aurispa, in 1440:

Totus es in librorum mercatura, sed in lectura mallem. Quid enim prodest libros quotidie, nunc emere, nunc vendere, legere vere nunquam! (You are completely absorbed in the occupation of trading books, but I should choose that of reading them. For what does it profit you to buy and sell books every day if you never have time for their perusal.)

And again in 1441:

Sed ex tua ista taberna libraria nullus unquam prodit codex, nisi cum quæstu.[355] (No book ever leaves your book-shop, except at a profit to you.)

The publishing undertakings of Aurispa were devoted almost entirely to works of classical literature. Among the authors whose names appear either in the lists of books offered by him or in the correspondence of his friends and clients, are as follows:

Philo Judæus, Strabo, Theophrastus, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Proculus, Homer, Aristarchus, Athenæus, Sophocles, Æschylus, Pindar, Oppian, Proclus, Eusebius, Gregory, Aristotle, Plutarch, Plotinus, Lucian, Dio Cassio, Diodorus, and other Greek authors. The Latin writers included Cicero (of necessity), Virgil, Pliny, Quintilian, Macrobius, Apicius, and Antonius.

Aurispa seems to have enjoyed the confidence and friendship of all the noted Italian scholars of his time, and the letters of his correspondents speak with very cordial appreciation as well of the importance of his services to literature, as of the extent of the accuracy of his own scholarship. The only correspondent with whom he appears to have had any trouble was Filelfi, but if Filelfi had not managed to have friction with Aurispa, the bookseller would have been an exception among the contemporaries of this irritable and self-sufficient scholar.

In 1450, being then well advanced in years, Aurispa gave up his business undertakings, took priestly orders, and lived thereafter as a scriba apostolicus, dividing his time between Ferrara and Rome. He declined tempting offers, made through his friend Panormita, to join the literary circle of King Alphonso which had been brought together about the Court in Naples.

After Aurispa’s death, Filelfo gave to his son-in-law, Sabbatinus, a very cordial word of appreciation of the services and of the character of the publisher. A portion of the manuscripts belonging to Aurispa’s collection was purchased in 1461 by Duke Borso of Ferrara for two hundred ducats.

A large collection of manuscripts was, however, in Aurispa’s possession at the time of his death, and these were taken charge of by Bartholomæus Facius, and, after various vicissitudes, many of them have since found place in existing collections of Florence, Venice, Vienna, Paris, and London. A selection of the letters between Aurispa and his near friend Camaldulensis has also been preserved.