Printing and the Renaissance: A Paper Read Before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York
A paper by John Rothwell Slater, read to the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York, and printed in December 1921 by William Edwin Rudge in an edition of 600 copies designed by Bruce Rogers and set in Monotype Caslon.
What it is
A paper by John Rothwell Slater, read to the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York, and printed in December 1921 by William Edwin Rudge in an edition of 600 copies designed by Bruce Rogers and set in Monotype Caslon. Its thesis is in the first line: the Renaissance made printing, not the reverse. Slater first traces book production before type (monastic scriptoria from 529, university stationers who rented textbooks by the sheet, then public bookshops) to show that manuscripts were costly but not scarce. He then profiles five printers: Aldus Manutius, whose small, cheap, scholar-edited octavos and italic type he compares with the Loeb Classical Library; Robert Estienne and his quarrels with the Sorbonne; Johann Froben; Anton Koberger; and William Caxton. He closes by arguing that printing's lasting effect was to carry learning from the few to the many.
Why read it now
For a marketer the book holds two lessons, one in its text and one in the object. The text shows Aldus building a product line the way a publisher would now: a clear format (the pocket octavo), a trusted standard (texts edited from the best manuscripts), a low price of about two lire, a recognisable mark (the dolphin and anchor) and his own direct selling by letter to scholars and booksellers across Europe. Format, quality and price aimed at a wider audience is still how categories open up; Penguin's sixpenny paperbacks of 1935 repeated the move. The object shows Rogers's restraint: one text face, wide margins, no ornament, and a colophon that states the papers and the number of copies, which is how premium print and packaging signal value on a small budget. What has dated: parts of the history, such as the claim that Laurence Koster of Haarlem used movable type by 1430, which historians now doubt, and the tone of club oratory. Use: when briefing a premium piece, cut to one typeface and state real production facts instead of adding decoration.
Passages worth keeping
Printing did not make the Renaissance; the Renaissance made printing.
الطباعة لم تصنع النهضة، بل النهضة هي التي أوجدت الحاجة إلى الطباعة؛ الطلب سبق الأداة.
Manuscript books were indeed relatively costly, but they were not scarce.
المخطوطات كانت غالية نسبيًا لكنها كانت متوفرة، فالطباعة خفضت الكلفة ولم تخلق القراءة من العدم.
Mr. Loeb's editors may employ when they choose the style of type known as italic; Aldus invented it.
محررو سلسلة لوب الحديثة يستعملون الحرف المائل متى شاؤوا، أما ألدوس فهو الذي اخترعه؛ مقارنة تبرز فضل الرائد على من جاء بعده.
Whoever thou art, thou art earnestly requested by Aldus to state thy business briefly and to take thy departure promptly.
لافتة علقها ألدوس على باب مكتبه يطلب فيها من كل زائر أن يوجز حاجته وينصرف سريعًا، حماية لوقت العمل.
one great book in a generation or a century, like a grain of radium in a ton of pitchblende, is worth all it has cost
كتاب عظيم واحد في جيل أو قرن يستحق كل ما أنتجته المطابع من رديء، كما تستحق حبة راديوم طنًا من الخام.
What it teaches best
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