SPAN 230: Medieval and Golden Age Spain (HC) Spring 2015: Secondary Sources: Books

Standard reference companion to the history of the book.

"with a note on the early editions of the Celestina"

Focuses on the interaction between the book industry and written culture in Renaissance Italy. After describing the new technology and the contexts of publishing and bookselling, it examines the continuities and changes faced by writers in the shift from manuscript to print, the extent to which they benefited from print in their careers, and the greater accessibility of books to a broader spectrum of readers, including women and the less well educated. This is the first integrated study of a topic of central importance in Italian and European culture.

"In this volume are reproduced 132 of the 199 pages which form the magnificent album [prepared for the Paris exposition, 1900] now on exhibition at the Laurentian library in Florence."--Editor's note.

The emergence of print in late fifteenth-century Italy gave a crucial new importance to the editors of texts, who could strongly influence the interpretation and status of texts by determining the form and context in which they would be read. Brian Richardson examines the Renaissance production, circulation and reception of texts by earlier writers including Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and Ariosto, as well as popular contemporary works of entertainment. In so doing he sheds light on the impact of the new printing and editing methods on Renaissance culture.

Proceedings of a conference on Fernando de Rojas and the Celestina, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, 21-24 November 1991

Documents the dawn of book printing and publishing in Venice, where "the first printers, publishing houses and bookstores open for business, and thrive, finding fertile ground in the city's wealth, its freedom and high level of literacy among its cosmopolitan population. Soon half of all the books published in Europe come from Venice." [adapted from publisher's blurb].