Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

Cennino was by trade a goldsmith, and had been associated with Ghiberti in the work on the famous gates of the Baptistery.[451] An enthusiast about the artistic pre-eminence of Florence and of Italy, he was said to have been jealous of the glory that had come to Germany through the invention of printing, and he determined to master the art without German aid.[452] In the colophon to his work, he describes the labour of the creation of his press, a labour which included the engraving of the steel punches and the casting of the type. His publishing venture was costly and probably unprofitable, and he appears to have printed no second book. He continued, however, in connection with his trade as a goldsmith, the work of engraving punches for type.

The German printers speedily found their way to Florence as they had already done to Rome, Venice, and Milan. In 1472, a certain Peter, describing himself as “de Moguntia,” (of Mayence) printed an edition of the Philocolo of Boccaccio, and in the same year, he issued the Triumphs of Petrarch.

The subscription reads: “Master Peter, son of John of Mayence, wrote (scripsit) this work in Florence, the 12th day of November, 1472.”

Humphreys points out that this imprint is an example of the habit of the early printers of considering their art as a kind of magical writing rather than as a mechanical contrivance.

The most important of the early printer-publishers of Florence was Nicholas of Breslau. In 1477, he published Bettini’s Monte Sancto di Dio, which, according to Humphreys, presents the first example of illustrations by means of engraved plates. In 1478, Nicholas published an edition of Dante, the most elaborate that had yet appeared. Dante had evidently already taken possession of the intellectual interest of Italy, and as early as 1472, no less than three editions had appeared. The fact that the poetry of Dante was given to the public in Italian, secured for it a much wider range of popular appreciation than was within reach of works written in Latin. The same was true of the works of Boccaccio and of Petrarch, which, with the aid of the printing-press, promptly came into the hands of large circles of readers. Petrarch was first printed in 1470, and Boccaccio in 1471, and thereafter editions of both authors followed rapidly.

In 1474, a press was set up in the monastery of San Jacopo di Ripili, near Florence, by two monks of the Brotherhood of S. Dominic. The greater part of the books printed by them were distributed among the monasteries as gifts or in exchange, but as the reputation of their publications increased, they found it necessary to accept orders from booksellers and from the outside public. Later, they added a type-foundry to their plant.

Genoa.

—The first printing-office in Genoa was established in 1471 by a German from Olmutz, named Moravus, who associated with himself, in 1474, an Italian named Michael da Monaco. The scribes, or manuscriptists, as they called themselves, made a vigorous protest against the new art. They addressed, in 1471, a petition to the magistracy in which they prayed to be protected from the competition of these newly arrived printers, at least as far as the production of Breviaries, Donati, and Psalters was concerned, as upon the multiplication of these they depended for their livelihood. Humphreys states that the original of this petition is still in existence.[453] The record of the reply given by the magistrates has not been preserved.

The printers were evidently not forbidden to print these books of service, as editions were speedily produced. The influence of the scribes appears, however, in the end, to have been sufficient to establish a kind of cabal against the printers, and in the course of a year or two the German gave up the attempt and removed his press to Naples. There was doubtless in all the Italian cities a large measure of jealousy and opposition on the part of the old librarii, stationarii, and scriptores, but Genoa appears to have been the only city where they were strong enough actually to drive out the printers, at least for a time.

The first Hebrew Bible printed in Europe was issued in Soncino in 1488, from the press of Abraham Colonto. It is described as a very fine piece of typography and as note-worthy for the artistic chapter-headings and for the elaborate decorations of the marginal borders of the pages.