L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 42 L'Italo-Americano G o l d s m i t h J o h a n n e s G u t e n b e r g m a y h a v e i n v e n t e d t h e movable-type printing press around 1450 in Meinz, Ger- many to create his monu- mental Bibles, but Venice is where the Printing Revolu- t i o n b e g a n b y g i v i n g t h e n a s c e n t i n d u s t r y a m a j o r push and changing men's lives. The Republic of Venice soon earned a reputation for being the cradle of the new technology. It became the Silicon Valley of the pub- lishing world. The new medium reached I t a l y i n 1 4 6 2 v i a a Benedictine monastery in S u b i a c o i n t h e S a b i n e M o u n t a i n s w h e r e S t . Benedict of Nursia had dwelt in the wilderness with other hermits in the early 6th century. The monastery of Santa Scolastica in Subiaco had a very active scriptori- u m , a r o o m s e t a p a r t f o r writing or copying of manu- scripts. The monastic scribes or amanuenses would endure the drawn-out task of copy- ing a manuscript and the dis- comfort of inadequate light and lack of heating in winter. B u t w h e n t h e G e r m a n monks Arnold Pannartz and Conrad Schweinheim settled in, a change arrived. Once p u p i l s o f G u t e n b e r g i n Mainz, they brought out the first print Italian book from the contemplative enclave in Subiaco, the editio princeps of Cicero's De Oratore, one of the masterpieces of Latin prose. It was Anno Domini (the year of the Lord) 1465. F o u r y e a r s l a t e r , i n S e p t e m b e r 1 4 6 9 , t h e Venetian Senate granted a German printer, Johannes de Spira (Speyer), a five-year monopoly on printing in the Venetian Lagoon -- the first m o n o p o l y o n p r i n t i n g bestowed by a European gov- ernment. The manuscript of t h e g r a n t i s k e p t a t t h e Venetian State Archives and it reads: "The art of printing books has been introduced into our renowned state, and f r o m d a y t o d a y i t h a s become more popular and common through the efforts, s t u d y a n d i n g e n u i t y o f M a s t e r J o h a n n e s o f Speyer, who chose our city over all the others. Here he lives with his wife, children, and whole household; prac- tices the said art of printing books; has just published, to universal acclaim, the Letters of Cicero and Pliny's noble work On Natural History, in the largest type and with the most beautiful letter-forms; and continues every day to print other famous volumes so that [this state] will be enriched by many, famous volumes, and for a low price, by the industry and fortitude of this man (…)". Venice was the first city in t h e w o r l d t o f e e l t h e f u l l impact of printing in those seminal years. Many other Germans typographers fled from their homes to produce and sell their books. It seems that to produce and sell their books they had to migrate to Venice. The phenomenon of mod- ern printing grew at a grass- roots level from the urban fabric and in the maze of the Venetian streets. Life never was the same: the clicking sound of the printing press never toned down in the city as printing techniques radi- ated an economic dynamism. Venice quickly became the European hub for the new p r i n t e d b o o k t r a d e . T h e demand increased rapidly as did the processes of mass- production and mass-distrib- ution. Ships left the port car- rying literature, religious texts, and all kinds of manu- a l s – a s w e l l a s b r e a k i n g news from across the known world. "In Venice, national and international trade in books developed to cater to large segments of European soci- ety. Venetian books reached every part of Europe," says Cristina Dondi, Professor o f E a r l y E u r o p e a n B o o k Heritage at the University of Oxford, Oakeshott Senior R e s e a r c h F e l l o w i n t h e Humanities, Lincoln College, a n d S e c r e t a r y o f t h e C o n s o r t i u m o f E u r o p e a n Research Libraries (CERL). Some scholars estimate that by the end of the 15th- century one-third of the vol- umes printed in the world o r i g i n a t e d f r o m t h e o u t - standing island city. In the very beginning "in V e n i c e , n o t o n e , b u t 2 0 0 printing shops transformed innovation in a new, success- f u l b u s i n e s s , " e x p l a i n s Professor Dondi, who in 2017 was made a Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy by the Italian President Sergio Mattarella for her work on the European printing revo- l u t i o n a n d i n s u p p o r t o f E u r o p e a n a n d A m e r i c a n libraries. O n e m a y w o n d e r w h y Venice was the first city to transform into the capital of the publishing business. "The Venetians had the skills, the continental mer- cantile networks, and the financial resources to domi- nate the new and massively e x p a n d i n g i n d u s t r y , " e x p l a i n s D o n d i , w h o h a s been leading a 15th-century b o o k t r a d e p r o j e c t a t t h e University of Oxford that measures the economic and social impact of the invention of printing on early modern European society. She cap- tured the evidence of the book trade by tracking the movement of 500,000 sur- viving incunabula -- books printed between 1450, the year of Gutenberg's inven- tion, and 1500 -- that were generally finished off with hand-decoration. They are scattered in 4,000 different l i b r a r i e s i n E u r o p e a n d North America. "For many years, in col- laboration with hundreds of E u r o p e a n a n d A m e r i c a n libraries, we have been gath- ering data from the thou- sands of books which still survive today and analyzing them with innovative digital technology," she explains. In MARIELLA RADAELLI A detail of a beautiful Book of Hours made by Nicolas Jenson, one of the main typographers in Venice at the end of the 15th century (Photo courtesy of Museo Correr) Continued to page 44 LIFE PEOPLE PLACES HERITAGE When new tech and start-ups made Venice the cradle of publishing

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