История письма и чтения. Асафова Г.К. - 126 стр.

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Italy

It may be said that book printing, after its birth in medieval Germany, was

carried to maturity in humanistic Italy. The printing press reached Italy very early

(1462–63), via the Benedictine monastery of Subiaco, near Rome, which had

strong German connections and a famous scriptorium. Two German printers,

Konrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, who had settled there, soon moved to

Rome (1467), where the church encouraged the production of inexpensive books.

In Italy as in Germany, however, it was the great commercial towns that became

centres of printing and publishing. By 1500, Venice had no fewer than 150 presses;

and two Venetian printers exercised a decisive influence on the form of the book:

Nicolas Jenson, an outstanding typographer who perfected the roman typeface in

1470, and Aldus Manutius, the greatest printer-publisher of his time. Aldus began

printing in 1490 with a series of Greek texts. He then hit on the idea of bringing

out inexpensive “pocket editions” for the new readers produced by the humanist

movement. Beginning in 1501 and continuing with six titles a year for the next five

years, he issued a series of Latin texts that were models of scholarship and

elegance. To keep down the cost, Aldus printed editions of 1,000, instead of the

more usual 250; and to fill the page economically, he used an italic type designed

for him by Francesco Griffo. The Aldine editions were widely copied, by pirating

(i.e., without permission from the publisher or payment to him) and other methods,

and their dolphin and anchor was one of the first instances of a publisher's device

(roughly equivalent to the modern logo).

France

The way in which printing came to France is of special interest because it

shows a publisher (rather than a printer-publisher) in command from the start. In

Paris in 1470, the rector and librarian of the Sorbonne invited three German

printers to set up a press on university premises. The scholars chose the books and

supervised the printing, even to specifying the type. Their preference for roman