Ausgabe 2.2017 / Renaissance

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://edoc.hu-berlin.de/18452/18712

Minor Publishers in the Renaissance

Some major publishers dominated the publishing scene in the Renaissance, like Aldo Manuzio and his family in Venice, and the Giunti family in Florence. From early on however there were many minor publishers, often very engaged, but successful only for a few years. These were often intellectuals, who followed special interests in their publishing policy. In Florence there was Anton Francesco Doni, member of the literary academy, who published his own works, but also those of his academy fellows, for example the lessons they presented in the Academy. His engagement did not lead to financial success and after a few years he had to stop. In Venice Francesco Sansovino was a likeminded, who published his own works as well and those of his friends, and some literary editions. There are numerous examples of private engagement in printing. This edition collects a few telling examples.

Edited by Angela Dressen, Susanne Gramatzki, Berenike Knoblich.
(Image: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing#/media/File:Printer_in_1568-ce.png)

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  • Publication
    2017-07Zeitschriftenartikel
    Staying Afloat: The Vavassore Workshop and the Role of the Minor Publisher in Sixteenth Century Venice
    (Humboldt-Universität (insgesamt)) Lussey, Natalie
    In the increasingly polarized historiography of the printing industry of Venice, the workshop established by Giovanni Andrea Vavassore around 1515 offers a refreshing perspective on the role of the minor publisher in the Renaissance lagoon. Neither focused on a specific genre or format of book, nor interested in employing innovatory techniques of production, Vavassore instead emerges as a printing poligrafo: a man willing to turn his hand to the production of printed wares of every kind; a maker of prints and maps, as well as a publisher, printer, and seller of all types of edition. Beginning with the formation of his press, this article follows Vavassore’s journey to the lagoon and charts the establishment of his workshop. It also examines the process by which a new artisan might learn skills and amass contacts from other members of the printing trade. Rather than an inherently competitive trade, Vavassore’s experience of printing in Venice stresses the importance of collaboration, cooperation, and networking. Working with other publishers, printers, mapmakers, and itinerant performers, he was able to establish an extensive and vibrant market for his printed wares both in Venice and beyond. The printing policy of the workshop – chiefly, to print what sold, and make the largest profits in doing so – emerges as key to the success of the Vavassore over the course of eight decades. Through the examination of a series of graphic prints, maps, pamphlets, and editions, this article questions the contemporary outreach and lasting influence of one of Venice’s many minor publishers in the Renaissance.
  • Publication
    2017-07Zeitschriftenartikel
    More is More: Francesco Sansovino’s Editorial Additions as a Form of Authorship on Dante’s Commedia (1564)
    (Humboldt-Universität (insgesamt)) Langer, Zoe
    This paper shows how Francesco Sansovino’s visual strategies for presenting Dante’s Commedia contribute to our knowledge about the publication and reception of Dante’s works in the mid-sixteenth century. Current scholarship has undervalued Sansovino’s authorship of literary editions, and in particular of medieval poets. An unicum of its time, Sansovino’s edition was the first double commentary on the Commedia to appear in print. He combined two of the most illustrious Dante commentators of the day – Cristoforo Landino and Alessandro Vellutello – into one sumptuous folio edition. Striking in its adherence to the medieval commentary layout, with a block of text surrounded by commentary, the organization of each author’s contribution was decidedly new. Sansovino presented each commentator as though they were in a dialogue, even though their interventions were more than sixty years apart. This is but one example of how Sansovino allowed Dante and his commentators to speak to each other as well as to contemporary audiences. This paper demonstrates how Sansovino maintained manuscript traditions, while creating innovative ways to organize the mise en page to assert his authorial role. I examine how he combined the medieval commentary format with modern editorial additions, such as glossaries, portraits, biographies, and summaries. Sansovino’s visual and verbal interventions further illuminate how editors defined their practice and status through the presentation of the book. An analysis of these additions in all three editions (1564, 1578, 1596) reveals how Sansovino used them to claim his own authorship as an editor, intellectual, and author.
  • Publication
    2017-07Zeitschriftenartikel
    “A Parisian in Venice”. Per Pietro Deuchino “parisiensis, impressor librorum et fusor characterum”
    (Humboldt-Universität (insgesamt)) Andreoli, Ilaria
    During the last years of the 16th c. the Venetian printing industry was still one of the major economic sectorsin the city, but production had dwindled to levels inferior to those of the middle years of the century because of the intellectual and moral crisis of the Republic, of the complete re-haul of the editorial geography of Europe, in which Venice ceased to be a capital, and of the repressive policy of the Counter Reformation. Printers and booksellers tried to react with the creation, in 1549, of the Corporazione or Università degli stampatori e librari. But the narrow-mindedness and restrictive policies of the corporation, that denied to non-members the right to exercize their trade and imposed strict rules on the activity of members, just worsened the plight of the industry. Among the many minor printers that were still active in Venice during the second half of the century, Pietro Deuchino, who was mainly a typecaster, would have remained in the shadows of history but for an anonymous denunciation accusing him of heretical behaviour and of possession of books listed in the index librorum prohibitorum, which led him to be tried by the Holy Office. Thanks to the pressing demands of the inquisitors when they interrogated Pietro and a great number of witnesses, I was able to piece together the career of a member of the booktrade who worked in France and Switzerland before settling in Italy, as well as his original voice “from the bottom” about the religious conflict that raged in Venice, as in the rest of Europe, during the second half of the century. I established for the first time a check-list of the 46 titles that Deuchino printed in Venice between 1570 and 1581, for himself or for other booksellers, and used it to complement the indications of the archival document. It is published here as an appendix.