Monte Video is one of the most curious—we might almost say
dramatic—episodes in the history of the art. The city, which had
existed nearly two hundred years without any more typographical
implement than a stamping machine, was taken by an English expedition in
February 1807. With the invaders came an enterprising Briton whose name
is unfortunately not recorded, but who, before leaving England, had
invested in a printing-press and types, and brought them with him with
the view of earning an honest penny by dissipating South American
darkness. He received every encouragement from the English military and
naval authorities, but most probably had to train native compositors,
who could not be extemporised in a city destitute of a printing-press.
At all events he did not get to work till May, when the first production
of his press was a proclamation, from which it appears that General
Whitelock, whose expedition was to end so disastrously, at the time
considered himself entitled to exercise authority over the whole of
South America. And whereas it has been asserted that wherever an
Englishman goes the first institution he creates is a public-house, be
it noted that the next official announcement imposes a swinging tax
upon the public-houses already existing, without any loophole for local
option. On May 23, an eventful date in Argentine history, appeared the
first numbers of _The Southern Star, La Estrella de Sur_, a journal in
English and Spanish, conducted by Adjutant-General Bradford, proudly
displaying the lion and the unicorn, and addressing the native
population as "fellow-subjects," a description softened in the Spanish
version into _amigos_. The consternation produced by this portent at
Buenos Ayres was excessive. "The enemies of our holy religion, of our
king, and of the weal of mankind," declared the Audiencia, "have chosen
the printing-press as their most effectual weapon. They are diffusing
papers full of the most detestable ideas, even to the pitch of asserting
that their infamous and abominable religion differs very little from
ours." The misfortunes of the British arms, however, extinguished _The
Southern Star_ after the third number, and the publisher, whose property
in his press and types was guaranteed by the capitulation, was glad to
sell them to the Buenos Ayres Foundling Hospital for five thousand
pesos, which, whether in the spirit of speculation or by reason of the
deficiency of the circulating medium so unhappily chronic in those
regions, he received in cascarilla at the rate of twelve reals a pound.
The object of the authorities was no doubt to get the press and its
appurtenances away from Monte Video. Within three short years Buenos
Ayres became the focus of revolution, while Monte Video was still
precariously loyal. The Princess Regent and her advisers, then
established at Rio de Janeiro, finding that the revolutionists were
flooding the country with their pamphlets, invoked the power they had
striven to suppress, and deeming to cast out Satan by Beelzebub, shipped
a quantity of Brazilian type, very bad, to judge by Señor Medina's
facsimile, to Monte Video, where, for the short remaining period
comprehended in Señor Medina's work, it was employed in producing
Government manifestos and an official journal; edited for a time by
Father Cirilo de Alameda, of whom it is recorded that he never wrote
anything tolerable except a defence of the Spanish constitution, and
that this was adapted from a panegyric on the Virgin.
This slight notice can give but a very imperfect idea of the varied
interest and splendid execution of Señor Medina's volume, a work as
creditable to the country which has produced it for the excellence of
the typography and the beauty of the numerous facsimiles, as to the
author for the extent and accuracy of his research, and the curious and
interesting particulars, biographical as well as bibliographical, which
he brings to light on every page. Could the remainder of Spanish America
be treated in a similar style, that much-neglected part of the world
would rival, if not surpass, any European country in the external
dignity of its bibliographical record. This may be too much to expect,
but it is greatly to be hoped that Señor Medina will find means for
giving to the world what is actually indispensable to the completion of
his important task. He is a citizen of the most prosperous,
progressive, and orderly state in South America. It would be to the
honour of the rulers of Chili if, overlooking all political differences,
they gave their distinguished fellow-citizen the means of associating
the name of his country, as well as his own, with as meritorious an
undertaking as ever appealed to the sympathy of an enlightened State.
FOOTNOTES:
[127:1] _Historia y Bibliografia de la Imprenta en la America
Española._ (Parte Segunda, Paraguay y el Vireinato del Rio de la
Plata.) Por Jose Toribio Medina (La Plata, 1892).
[130:1] It has always been supposed that Paraguay was the first
country of South America to possess a printing-press after Peru,
but this honour may possibly be due to Brazil. In the memorial of
the inhabitants of the province of Pernambuco to John IV., King of
Portugal, beseeching his assistance in the expulsion of the Dutch
invaders (1645), printed in "O Valoroso Lucideno" by Manoel Calado,
Lisbon, 1648, the Dutch are accused of having propagated heresy by
means of tracts, "which have been found in the hands of many persons of
tender age." These _cartilhas_ must evidently have been in Portuguese,
they are more likely to have been printed than in MS., and it is
perhaps more probable that they were printed on the spot than exported
from Holland. If this is the case, Pernambuco is entitled to the
honour of being the first city in South America in which printing was
exercised after Lima.
[131:1] Several Spanish books printed at Manila in the eighteenth
century have frontispieces admirably engraved by native artists.
We have seen an English pamphlet printed in the Orange Free State,
prefaced by an apology for mistakes of the press on the ground that the
compositors were Hottentots.
THE EARLY ITALIAN BOOK TRADE
[_Bibliographica_, vol. i. pt. 3, published by Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co.]
There are few inquiries more interesting than one into the character and
tendencies of an epoch, as ascertained by their reflection in its
literature. Such an investigation, if referring to modern times and
extended beyond a single country, must generally be incomplete on
account of the great mass of the materials, which defies any exhibition
of the literary tendencies prevailing at any given period over the whole
of Europe. In the first age of printing alone the number of books is not
absolutely unmanageable, and their bibliographical interest has ensured
their accurate description in catalogues. It would not be beyond the
power of industry to make a digest of the _incunabula_ of the fifteenth
century, so far as to show the number of books printed in each country,
their respective subjects, the frequency of reprints, the ratio of the
various classes to each other, the proportion of Latin to vernacular
books, and other particulars of this nature by which the intellectual
currents of the age might be mapped out.
The present essay is to be regarded as no more than a very imperfect
indication of the feasibility of such an undertaking. Observations,
sufficiently desultory, on the general character of the literature
published in Italy, from the introduction of printing into the country
to the end of the century, have suggested some remarks on the kind of
books which the early Italian printers found it profitable to produce,
and some inferences respecting the taste of the day, and the classes
which would be reached by the printing-press. To afford a really
satisfactory ground-work for such an inquiry, all known publications
should be enumerated (although the briefest titles would serve), and
tabulated according to their subjects. Deductions regarding the
intellectual aspects of the time might then be made with some
confidence, and the apparently dry and unpromising ground-work would
admit of rich illustration from the stores of contemporary literary
history. Any such fulness of treatment is, of course, as incompatible
with the space available in _Bibliographica_ as with the time at the
disposal of the writer. Enough, it is hoped, will have been done to show
how interesting a detailed analysis of the subject might be made. The
Roman and Venetian presses have been chiefly dwelt upon, inasmuch as
these two cities, the first in Italy to possess printing-presses, also
served to test the opposite systems of reliance upon patronage in high
quarters, or upon the free life of a busy and prosperous community. The
result is instructive, and has been confirmed by every similar
experiment in later times.
In examining the literature of the age, as represented by the
contemporary productions of the press, we are particularly impressed by
its utilitarian, and, as a corollary, its essentially popular character.
We do not employ this latter term as indicative of a relation between
the printers and the mass of the people, who at that period were
generally unable to read, but between the printers and their limited
public. In our times a considerable proportion of the current literature
of the day is produced without any reference to the needs and tastes of
the reading public. The author knows that he will not be read, but it
nevertheless suits him to put his opinions, his experiences, or his
skill in composition upon record; for the gratification of his
self-esteem, it may be, or the expression of his emotions, or as a
document for future reference, or as an act of duty, or for the pleasure
of friends, or for any one or more of these and many other conceivable
reasons. Were it not for the safety-valve afforded by the periodical
press, the number of books thus existing for the author's individual
sake would be very much more considerable. Hardly anything of this is to
be observed in the early ages of publishing. Scarcely a book is to be
found for which a public might not be reasonably expected, and which,
therefore, would not be produced without the expectation of profit. We
know that this expectation was not always realised from Sweynheym and
Pannartz's petition to Pope Sixtus IV., that he would indemnify them by
some public appointment for the loss of capital sunk in their unsold
publications, but the books were such as promised to command a sale, and
the reason of their failure was probably the competition of other
Italian presses. They were principally classical authors or Fathers of
the Church, and it may be that exigencies of Papal patronage led
Sweynheym and his partner to produce more of the latter class than was
prudent on strictly commercial grounds. If so, the case was quite
exceptional, and does not invalidate the general proposition that the
Italian printers of the Renaissance looked entirely, and in the main
intelligently, to the needs of their public. It is thus easy to discover
the character of this constituency, and to estimate its requirements.
For long after the invention of printing the books produced consist
mainly of four classes:—(1) Classical, (2) Grammatical, (3)
Theological, (4) Legal. The immense proportion of these in comparison
with other subjects demonstrates that the great majority of readers
belonged to the professional classes—teachers, or at least students at
the universities, divines, and practitioners of civil or canon law. Had
a leisured and cultured class existed, as in our times, we should have
seen more modern history and biography, more essays and facetiæ, more
vernacular poetry and fiction—all departments very slenderly
represented in the fifteenth century. Men evidently read for practical
ends, and invested their money in the expectation of a substantial
rather than an intellectual return. The class that now reads principally
for amusement, did not in that age read at all; but if it had, books
could not then be produced at the cheap rate required to ensure an
extensive circulation. If such books are costly, they must at all events
be solid, to give the purchaser an apparent return for his money; or the
expense must be distributed over a wide area by the agency of
circulating libraries, an institution which implies a numerous reading
public. Hence, a fact honourable to Renaissance literature, it includes
hardly anything that can be called trash. Copious in the number of its
publications, it is disappointingly meagre in their themes; many
branches of human activity hardly exist for it, but, at all events,
almost every one of its publications was produced in response to a real
need. Most of them have inevitably become obsolete, few have ever been,
or will be, utterly valueless.
The drawback to the generally sterling character of the early
Renaissance printing was want of enterprise on the part of the printers,
who were also the publishers. At the present day culture is greatly
promoted by the ambitious and competitive spirit of publishers, who look
far and wide for subjects likely to touch sympathetic chords in the
breast of the public, are always ready to listen to new ideas, to which
they frequently accord generous encouragement, compete among themselves
for promising writers, and are continually devising new schemes to
attract patronage by elegance, cheapness, artistic decoration, or the
supply of some want which the public has not yet found out for itself.
Very little of this is to be discovered in the fifteenth century.
Publishers seldom cared to transgress the safe ordinary round of
classics, divinity, and law. Occasionally there are symptoms of
alertness to the events of the day: thus, as soon as Cardinal Rovere
becomes Pope, his treatises on the Redemption and the perpetual
virginity of Mary are printed at Rome; and when the Jews are accused of
murdering a Christian boy, circumstantial accounts of the tragedy appear
in different parts of Europe. But, notwithstanding the intellectual
curiosity of the age, it would seem to have been a very unpromising one
for the literary manifestation of original genius of any kind. Works of
contemporary authors, other than of a purely utilitarian character, are
very rare. One of the most remarkable exceptions is the publication at
Naples in 1476 of the "Novellini" of Masuccio, a book whose scandalous
character would be sure to obtain it readers. Towards the end of the
century, works by living authors of eminence became more frequent, but
even then they are most commonly those of men like Sanazzaro,
influential in courts, and enjoying literary distinction long before
they went to press. One of the press's most important functions, the
encouragement of unknown ability, was hardly performed at all in that
age, and the principal reason was that the printers, though sometimes of
classical acquirements, were either too exclusively commercial in their
views or too limited in their resources to promote literary activity
outside of the beaten track. Our own Caxton appears a model of
intelligent adaptation to the tastes of his public, but he never finds
an author or exerts himself to give superior finish or elegance to a
book. It cannot but be thought that if Italy had in the fifteenth
century possessed a publisher of enterprising spirit and ample means, a
powerful impulse might have been imparted to Italian vernacular
literature. Such a person, indeed, would have perceived that the public
for such a literature, apart from its few classical examples, did not
then exist, but he would have deemed that the multitude of intelligent
men who could not read Latin would read Italian, if Italian were put
before them. Instead of hiring editors he would have hired authors, and
his enterprise might have been attended by momentous consequences.
Another token of the lack of a far-seeing speculative spirit is the
extraordinary period which elapsed before an Italian printer ventured
upon the publication of a Greek book. The interest in Greek literature
must have been very general, but instructors were probably scarce, and
few Italians had taken the trouble to learn it. The educational value of
the language, apart from the contents of the books composed in it, was
utterly unsurmised, and the reader was fully satisfied if he could
obtain a faithful Latin translation, which in the majority of cases was
not yet to be had. Had printed Greek texts been placed in the way of
readers, a vast impulse would have been given to the study of the
language, and a publisher of genius, labouring to create the taste he
did not find, might have greatly accelerated the course of European
culture. Greek grammar, even, awaited the typographer until 1476, and
Greek literature for some years longer. No originality was infused into
the business of publishing until the advent of Aldus, almost as much the
father of modern bookselling as Gutenberg is the father of printing.
Leaving the question of what the Renaissance printers and publishers of
Italy might have done, we proceed to illustrate what they did by a brief
analysis of the character of their productions during the first few
years of their activity, especially in Rome and Venice. The survey is
necessarily very imperfect, for a large proportion of their productions
are not dated, and the exact year is usually a matter of conjecture. We
must confine ourselves to the list of dated books given by Panzer, which
might admit of considerable extension. It is not likely, however, that
this would materially affect the mutual proportion of the various
classes of literature, the point with which we are principally
concerned.
Printing was established at Rome in 1467 by the removal of Sweynheym and
Pannartz from Subiaco. Five books are recorded to have been printed
there in that year; two classics (Cicero's "De Oratore" and "Epistolæ ad
Familiares"), two editions of the fathers, and one grammatical work. In
1468 six more make their appearance, one classical, three patristic, one
theological, and one medical. In 1469 commences the great run upon
classical writers, which continued for some years. Of the twelve books
enumerated by Panzer as produced in this year, all but one are
classics, and the apparent exception is a defence of Plato by Cardinal
Bessarion. All but one are printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz, with
prefaces by the Bishop of Aleria as editor-general. This striking
development of activity indicates the first organised attempt to
monopolise a special department of the book-trade, which might possibly
have succeeded if Rome had then, as now, been the capital of an united
Italy. The other Italian cities, however, had no intention of being
excluded from the practice of the new art, and the same year witnessed
the introduction of typography into its true Italian metropolis, Venice,
combined, however, with an audacious attempt to obtain a monopoly.
Joannes de Spira, the first printer in Venice, not content with
obtaining protection for his publications, claimed and obtained the sole
right of printing books in the city for five years. Men had evidently as
yet but little conception of the importance of the new art; but the
death of the printer within the year released the Venetian State from
the obligation it had so inconsiderately undertaken, and it was by this
time sufficiently enlightened not to renew it in favour of his brother
Vindelinus, who, however, remained for some time among the most
distinguished of Venetian printers.[149:1]
Before leaving the year 1469, we should mention the first Italian
instance of a printed translation of a Greek classic, the Italian
Strabo, published by Sweynheym and Pannartz without date, but which is
known to have belonged to this year. In 1470 the run on classics
continues, the same number as in the previous year being printed, mostly
by Sweynheym and Pannartz, but a revival is apparent in other branches
of literature, the number of books in theology being nearly equal to
that of the classics. Another translation from the Greek appears, that
of Plutarch's Lives, rendered by various hands, with the preface of J.
A. Campanus. The most remarkable production of the Roman press for this
year, however, is a small tract, which affords the first example of
recourse to printing by a Pope for an official purpose. It is the brief
of Pope Paul II., enacting that the Jubilee shall henceforth be
celebrated every twenty-fifth year, and consequently in 1475, which he
did not live to see. This interesting document has been recently
acquired by the British Museum. In 1471, as is most probable, another
Government publication appeared, "The Civic Statutes of Rome," as
revised by Paul II.; and the election of his successor Sixtus, in the
same year, produced the first two examples of official publications,
afterwards very frequent, the congratulatory harangues pronounced by
ambassadors upon occasion of their tendering homage to the Pope.
Twelve classical publications grace the year, mostly from the press of
Sweynheym and Pannartz, as well as the first volume of their great
edition of the "Biblical Commentary" of Nicolaus de Lyra. The remaining
four volumes appeared in the year following, and the last was freighted
with the memorable appeal to Pope Sixtus IV., composed by the Bishop of
Aleria in the name of the printers, which throws so vivid a light on the
vicissitudes of the book-trade in Rome. They have printed 12,475 sheets,
_acervum ingentem_, for which it is marvellous that paper or types
should have been found. Their spacious premises are choked with unbound
sheets in quinions (_quinterniones_), but void of victual and drink.
Will the Pope give them some little office, by aid of which they may be
able to provide for themselves and their families? Rome was manifestly
no place for classical publishers, even under a Pope who did so much for
the encouragement of learning as Sixtus. The forlorn estate of Sweynheym
and Pannartz, contrasted, as we shall see, with the flourishing
condition of the Venetian book-trade at the time, shows that even at a
period when reading, to say nothing of the scholarship required to
master the literature of the day, was not a general accomplishment, the
bookseller's best patron was the public. Probably, however, the
hardships of the firm may have been somewhat exaggerated by the eloquent
pen of the Bishop of Aleria; for in this very year they appear as
printing ten books, and in the following year seven. Two of these are
new editions of works previously issued by them, showing not only that
the original impression was sold out, but that it was thought profitable
to undertake another.
In 1474 the names of the printers entirely disappear as partners.
Sweynheym is known to have died before 1478 (when the Ptolemy, which he
had begun to prepare for the press, was published by Arnold Buckingk),
but at what particular time is uncertain. Pannartz comes forward by
himself in December 1474, and in the following year he occurs as the
printer of eight books, chiefly classical. In 1476 he prints three, but
his activity abruptly terminates in March, a period coinciding with a
collapse in Roman publishing, best illustrated by a comparative table:—
1475 53 books.
1476 24 books.
1477 14 books.
1478 15 books.
1479 11 books.
1480 9 books.