The conditions of enquiry: Printing and censorship

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521251044.004

2 - The conditions of enquiry: Printing and censorship

from PART 1 - THE INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Edited by

Eckhard Kessler and

Get access

Summary

THE IMPACT OF PRINTING

Printing had an enormous effect on all learning, but its impact was neither revolutionary nor sudden. Instead, over a period of fifty to one hundred years it so greatly facilitated the dissemination of the results of enquiry as to propel philosophy and all other branches of learning into a new era. This brief survey attempts to explain how printing affected the conditions of learning in the Renaissance, and especially how the press communicated the results of scholarly enquiry. The perspective is that of author and reader, with the printer as usually helpful but occasionally as an obstructionist intermediary.

The development of printing

An earlier innovation helped make printing possible: paper came from China through the Near East into the West about 1100. It spread quickly throughout Europe until the majority of manuscript books were written on paper in the early fifteenth century. Paper suited printing far better than vellum (prepared animal skin): it was more pliable, absorbed ink better than vellum, and was considerably cheaper.

Johann Gutenberg at Strasburg and Mainz experimented for years before he and his associates were able to solve the technical problems necessary for printing. Their first major achievement was the beautiful forty-two-line Bible, probably begun in 1452 and certainly completed by 1455. But printing did not make a significant impact on learning until presses had multiplied, their production had diversified, and the reading public had become aroused. This led gradually to a broad system of distribution and marketing. This process began about 1470 and came to full fruition about 1500.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy , pp. 25 - 54

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521251044.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bietenholz, P. B. (1959). Der italienische Humanismus und die Blütezeit des Buchdrucks in Basel, Basle.Google Scholar

Bietenholz, P. B. (1971). Basle and France in the Sixteenth Century, Geneva.Google Scholar

Bietenholz, P. B. (1975). ‘Ethics and early printing: Erasmus' rules for the proper conduct of authors’, The Humanities Association Review, 26.Google Scholar

Bremme, H.J. (1969). Buchdrucker und Buchhändler zur Zeit der Glaubenskämpfe: Studien zur Genfer Druckgeschichte, 1565–1580, Geneva.Google Scholar

Chaix, P. (1954). Recherches sur l'imprimerie à Genève de 1550 à 1564, Geneva.Google Scholar

Chaix, P., Dufour, A. and Moeckli, G. (1966). Les Livres imprimés à Genève de 1550 à 1560, rev. edn, Geneva.Google Scholar

Chrisman, M. U. (1982a). Bibliography of Strasbourg Imprints, 1480–1599, New Haven–London.Google Scholar

Chrisman, M. U. (1982b). Lay Culture, Learned Culture: Books and Social Change in Strasbourg, 1480–1599, New Haven–London.CrossRef Google Scholar

Eisenhardt, U. (1970). Die kaiserliche Aufsicht über Buchdruck, Buchhandel und Presse im Heiligen Römischen Reich Deutscher Nation (1496–1806), Karlsruhe.Google Scholar

Erasmus, Desiderius (1974–). Collected Works, Toronto.Google Scholar

Evans, R. J. W. (1975). The Wechel Presses: Humanism and Calvinism in Central Europe 1572–1627, Oxford.Google Scholar

Febvre, L. (1947). Le Problème de l'incroyance au XVIe siècle, Paris.Google Scholar

Firpo, L. (1950–1). ‘Filosofia italiana e Controriforma’, Rivista di filosofia, 41: ; 42.Google Scholar

Geldner, F. (1978). Inkunabelkunde: Eine Einführung in die Welt des frühesten Buchdrucks, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar

Goldschmidt, E. P. (1943). Medieval Texts and their First Appearance in Print, London.Google Scholar

Grendler, M. T. (1980). ‘A Greek collection in Padua: the library of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601)’, Renaissance Quarterly, 33.CrossRef Google Scholar

Grendler, M. T. and , P. F. (1976). ‘The survival of Erasmus in Italy’, Erasmus in English, 8.Google Scholar

Grendler, P. F. (1977). The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540–1605, Princeton.Google Scholar

Guarino, da Verona (1915–19). Epistolario, ed. Sabbadini, R., 3 vols., Venice.Google Scholar

Hilgers, J. (1904). Der Index der verbotenen Bücher, Freiburg.Google Scholar

Hirsch, R. (1955). ‘Pre-Reformation censorship of printed books’, Library Chronicle, 21.Google Scholar

Hirsch, R. (1973). ‘Bulla super impressione librorum, 1515’, Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 48.Google Scholar

Hirsch, R. (1974). Printing, Selling and Reading, 1450–1550, 2nd rev. edn, Wiesbaden.Google Scholar

Index de l'Inquisition espagnole: 1551, 1554, 1559 (1984). ed. Bujanda, J. M. et al., Sherbrooke–Geneva.Google Scholar

Index de l'Université de Paris: 1544, 1545, 1547, 1549, 1551,1556 (1985). ed. , J. M. Bujanda et al., Sherbrooke–Geneva.Google Scholar

Kapp, F. (1886). Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels, 1, Leipzig.Google Scholar

Kenney, E. J. (1974). The Classical Text, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London.Google Scholar

Kingdon, R. M. (1964). ‘Patronage, piety, and printing in sixteenth-century Europe’, in A Festschrift for Frederick B. Artz, ed. Pinkney, D. H. and Ropp, T., Durham, N.C..Google Scholar

La disputa delle arti nel Quattrocento (1947). ed. Garin, E., Florence.Google Scholar

Lenhart, J. M. (1935). Pre-Reformation Printed Books: A Study in Statistical and Applied Bibliography, New York.Google Scholar

Loades, D. M. (1974). ‘The theory and practice of censorship in sixteenth-century England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 24.CrossRef Google Scholar

Metzger, B. M. (1968). The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, 2nd rev. edn, Oxford.Google Scholar

Pinelli, Gian Vincenzo (1574). [Letter] MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Dupuy 704, f. 28.Google Scholar

Reusch, F. H. (1883–5). Der Index der verbotenen Bücher: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- und Literaturgeschichte, 2 vols., Bonn (repr. Darmstadt, 1967).Google Scholar

Reynolds, B. (1955). ‘Latin historiography, a survey 1400–1600’, Studies in the Renaissance, 2.CrossRef Google Scholar

Rivolta, A. (1933). Catalogo dei codici pinelliani dell'Ambrosiana, Milan.Google Scholar

Rotondò, A. (1973). ‘La censura ecclesiastica e la cultura’, in Storia d'Italia, V, Turin.Google Scholar

Santschi, C. (1978). La Censure à Genève au XVIIe siècle, Geneva.Google Scholar

Thompson, J. W. (1911). The Frankfurt Book Fair, Chicago (repr. New York, 1968).Google Scholar

Voet, L. (1969–72). The Golden Compasses: A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana at Antwerp, 2 vols., Amsterdam–London–New York.Google Scholar