История письма и чтения. Асафова Г.К. - 128 стр.

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important base. Though Madrid became dominant after 1566, publishing flourished

in the early period at Barcelona, Burgos, Zaragoza, Seville, and the university

towns of Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares. Spain quickly evolved its own

distinctive style of book, full of dignity and printed largely in black-letter types.

The most remarkable production of the period was the magnificent Complutensian

Polyglot Bible (which presented the text in several languages in adjacent columns),

sponsored by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros “to revive the hitherto

dormant study of the scriptures,” which it effectively did. It was printed at Alcalá

de Henares, in Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Greek, and Latin, by Arnaldo Guillermo

de Brocar, the first great Spanish printer. Editorial work was begun in 1502, the six

volumes were printed in 1514–17, and the book finally was issued in 1521 or 1522.

In Lisbon, the first printed book was a Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible)

produced in 1489 by Eliezer Toledano; he was reinforced in 1495 by two printers

summoned by the Queen of Portugal. From Spain, printing crossed the Atlantic

during this early period. In 1539 Juan Cromberger of Seville, whose father, Jacob,

had set up a press there in 1502, secured the privilege for printing in Mexico and

sent over one of his men, Juan Pablos. In that year, Pablos published the first

printed book in the New World, Doctrina christiana en la lengua mexicana e

castellana (“Christian Doctrine in the Mexican and Castilian Language”).

England

Compared with the Continent, England in the early days of printing was

somewhat backward. Printing only reached England in 1476, and in 1500 there

were still only five printers working in England, all in London and all foreigners.

Type seems to have been largely imported from the Continent until about 1567,

and paper until about 1589 (except for a brief spell during 1495–98). In an Act of

1484 to restrict aliens engaging in trade in England, Richard III deliberately

exempted all aliens connected with the book trade in order to encourage its

domestic development. In the following year, Henry VII appointed a foreigner,

Peter Actors of Savoy, as royal stationer, with complete freedom to import books.