Lucca and Foligno.
—The little city of Lucca is entitled to mention in connection with the introduction of printing into Italy, if only because it was the only city in Italy (and possibly the only one in Europe), in which the new art secured the direct support and co-operation of the government in the form, first of a municipal decree in favour of the printing-press, and secondly of a direct subvention from the municipal treasury in encouragement of the first printer. The printer was Clemente, a native of Padua, who was engaged in business in Lucca as a scribe and illuminator. It was made a condition of the appropriation (the amount of which is not stated) that the printer, who was to be classed as a public functionary, was to hold himself in readiness to teach the art to all who might desire to learn. Clemente established his press in Lucca in 1477, and printed there in that year, an edition of the Triumphs of Petrarch. He had previously printed in Venice a work by John Mesne, of Damascus, on universal medicine, a large folio of 400 pages.
A still smaller city than Lucca, Foligno in Umbria, enjoys the distinction of having received as its first printer, Johann Numeister, who had been a pupil and assistant of Gutenberg himself. After the death of his master, Numeister came to Italy with the intention of setting up a press in Rome. He was induced to settle at Foligno at the instance of Orfinis, a wealthy citizen, who supplied the funds necessary for the undertaking. The first publication of the Foligno Press was Leonardi Aretini Bruni de Bello Italico adversus Gothos, which bears date 1470.
The imprint states that the book was “printed by Numeister in the house of Emilianus de Orfinis.” The second work selected was an edition of the Divina Commedia of Dante, the manuscript copy of which had been collated and corrected for the press by Orfinis. Orfinis died in 1472, just before the printing of the Commedia was completed. Numeister paid a tribute to his patron in the last line of the rhyming imprint:
Nel milla quatro cente septe e due
Nel quarto mese; a di cinque et sei,
Questa opera gentile impresso fue,
Io maestro Johanni Numeister opera dei
Alla dicta impressione, et meco fue,
El Elfuginato, Evangelista mei.
—Humphreys interprets the words “Evangelist mine” as standing for “the one who made me known to the world.”[450] M. Bernard writes, “better Evangelist than I am.” The last volume bearing the name of Numeister was an edition of Torquemada’s Contemplations. With his death in 1479, the brief record of the press of Foligno comes to a close.