Society of Antiquaries in England. 65. No academy or similar institution can be traced at this time, as far as I know, in France or Germany. But it is deserving of remark, that one sprung up in England, not indeed of the classical and polite character that belonged to the Infiammati of Padua, or the Della Crusca of Florence, yet useful in its objects, and honourable alike to its members and to the country. This was the Society of Antiquaries, founded by Archbishop Parker in 1572. Their object was the preservation of ancient documents, illustrative of history, which the recent dissolution of religious houses, and the shameful devastation attending it, had exposed to great peril. They intended also, by the reading of papers at their meetings, to keep alive the love and knowledge of English antiquity. In the second of these objects this society was more successful than in the first; several short dissertations, chiefly by Arthur Agard, their most active member, have been afterwards published. The Society comprised very reputable names, chiefly lawyers, and continued to meet till early in the reign of James, who, from some jealousy, thought fit to dissolve it.[1434]
[1434] See life of Agard, in Biogr. Brit. and in Chalmers. But the best account is in the Introduction to the first volume of the Archæologia. The present society of Antiquaries is the representative, but after long intermission, of this Elizabethan progenitor.
New books and catalogues of them. 66. The chief cities on this side of the Alps, whence new editions came forth, were Paris, Basle, Lyons, Leyden, Antwerp, Brussels, Strasburg, Cologne, Heidelberg, Frankfort, Ingolstadt, and Geneva. In all these, and in all other populous towns, booksellers, who were generally also printers, were a numerous body. In London at least forty or fifty were contemporaneous publishers in the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign; but the number elsewhere in England was very small. The new books on the continent, and within the Alps and Pyrenees, found their principal mart at the annual Frankfort fairs. Catalogues of such books began to be published, according to Beckmann, in 1554.[1435] In a collective catalogue of all books offered for sale at Frankfort, from 1564 to 1592, I find the number, in Latin, Greek, and German, to be about 16,000. No Italian or French appear in this catalogue, being probably reserved for another. Of theology in Latin there are 3200, and in this department the catholic publications rather exceed the protestant. But of the theology in the German language the number is 3700, not one-fourth of which is catholic. Scarcely any mere German poetry appears, but a good deal in both languages with musical notes. Law furnishes about 1600 works. I reckoned twenty-seven Greek and thirty-two Latin grammars, not counting different editions of the same. There are at least seventy editions of parts of Aristotle. The German books are rather more than one-third of the whole. Among the Latin I did not observe one book by a writer of this island. In a compilation by Clessius, in 1602, purporting to be a conspectus of the publications of the sixteenth century, formed partly from catalogues of fairs, partly from those of public libraries, we find, at least in the copy I have examined, but which seems to want one volume, a much smaller number of productions than in the former, but probably with more selection. The books in modern languages are less than 1000, half French, half Italian. In this catalogue also the catholic theology rather outnumbers the protestant, which is perhaps not what we should have expected to find.
[1435] Hist. of Inventions, iii. 120. “George Willer, whom some improperly call Viller, and others Walter, a bookseller at Augsburg, who kept a large shop, and frequented the Frankfort fairs, first fell upon the plan of causing to be printed every fair a catalogue of all the new books, in which the size and printers’ names were marked.” There seems to be some doubt whether the first year of these catalogues was 1554 or 1564: the collection mentioned in the text leads us rather to suspect the latter.
Literary correspondence. 67. These catalogues, in the total absence of literary journals, were necessarily the great means of communicating to all the lovers of learning in Cisalpine Europe (for Italy had resources of her own) some knowledge of its progress. Another source of information was the correspondence of scholars with each other. It was their constant usage, far more than in modern times, to preserve an epistolary intercourse. If their enmities were often bitter, their contentions almost always violent, many beautiful instances of friendship and sympathy might be adduced on the other side; they deemed themselves a distinct cast, a priesthood of the same altar, not ashamed of poverty, nor disheartened by the world’s neglect, but content with the praise of those whom themselves thought worthy of praise, and hoping something more from posterity than they obtained from their own age.
Bibliographical works. 68. We find several attempts at a literary or rather bibliographical history of a higher character than these catalogues. The Bibliotheca Universalis of Gesner was reprinted in 1574, with considerable enlargements by Simler. Conrad Lycosthenes afterwards made additions to it, and Verdier published a supplement. Verdier was also the author of a Bibliothèque Française, of which the first edition appeared in 1584. Another with the same title was published in the same year by La Croix du Maine. Both these follow the strange alphabetical arrangement by Christian instead of family names, so usual in the sixteenth century. La Croix du Maine confines himself to French authors, but Verdier includes all who had been translated. The former is valued for his accuracy and for curious particulars in biography; the second for the extracts he has given. Doni pretended to give a history of books in his Libreria, but it has not obtained much reputation, and falls, according to the testimony of those who are acquainted with it, below the compilations above-mentioned.[1436]
[1436] Morhof. Goujet. Biogr. Univ.
Restraints on the Press. 69. The despotism of the state, and far more of the church, bore heavily on the press in Italy. Spain, mistress of Milan and Naples, and Florence under Cosmo I., were jealous governments. Venice, though we are apt to impute a rigid tyranny to its senate, appears to have indulged rather more liberty of writing on political topics to its subjects, on the condition, no doubt, that they should eulogise the wisdom of the republic; and, comparatively to the neighbouring regions of Italy, the praise both of equitable and prudent government may be ascribed to that aristocracy. It had at least the signal merit of keeping ecclesiastical oppression at a distance; a Venetian might write with some freedom of the papal court. One of the accusations against Venice, in her dispute with Paul V., was for allowing the publication of books that had been censured at Rome.[1437]
[1437] Ranke, ii. 330.
Index Expurgatorius. 70. But Rome struck a fatal blow, and perhaps more deadly than she intended, at literature in the Index Expurgatorius of prohibited books. It had long been the regulation that no book should be printed without a previous license. This was of course a restraint on the freedom of writing, but it was less injurious to the trade of the printer and bookseller than the subsequent prohibition of what he had published or purchased at his own cost and risk. The first list of books prohibited by the church was set forth by Paul IV. in 1559. His Index includes all Bibles in modern languages, enumerating forty-eight editions, chiefly printed in countries still within the obedience of the church. Sixty-one printers are put under a general ban; all works of every description from their presses being forbidden. Stephens and Oporinus have the honour of being among these.[1438] This system was pursued and rigorously acted upon by the successors of the imperious Caraffa. The council of Trent had its own list of condemned publications. Philip II. has been said to have preceded the pope himself in a similar proscription. Wherever the sway of Rome and Spain was felt, books were unsparingly burned, and to this cause is imputed the scarcity of many editions.