8 - The editor triumphant: editing in Venice, 1546–1560

Summary

Two admittedly partial statistical analyses provide evidence that the next fifteen years brought a continued expansion in the output of Venetian presses. A survey of the British Library's holdings suggests that there were more printers and more books printed in Venice between 1551 and 1575 than at any other time in the Cinquecento. Her overall dominance of the Italian market was still overwhelming, even though it declined somewhat from the heights of 1526–50 as the shares of some minor centres, including Florence, rose. The number of imprimaturs granted to works not previously published in the Venetian state rose steeply during the 1550s. And the output of the leading press, that of Gabriel Giolito, reached its peak around 1555. The contribution which editors had made to this success story was reflected in their increasing prominence as individuals, each with his own distinctive approach to the shaping of a publication. Rivalries between them became more heated: hence the outbreak of polemics in print, similar to those to which classical editors had devoted such energy since the Quattrocento. One controversy involved Domenichi and the Florentine Anton Francesco Doni. In another, Dolce exchanged vitriolic words with Girolamo Ruscelli of Viterbo, who even published a book attacking his rival, the Tre discorsi of 1553.

Ruscelli's editorial career, which lasted from 1551 until his death in 1566 and has recently been illuminated by Paolo Trovato, exemplifies well the positions of agent and entrepreneur which such a person could now occupy.