Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna and the Social World of Florentine Printing, ca. 1470–1493

Lorenz Böninger

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Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna and the Social World of Florentine Printing, ca. 1470–1493

Language: English

Published/Copyright: 2021

About this book

A new history of one of the foremost printers of the Renaissance explores how the Age of Print came to Italy.

Lorenz Böninger offers a fresh history of the birth of print in Italy through the story of one of its most important figures, Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna. After having worked for several years for a judicial court in Florence, Niccolò established his business there and published a number of influential books. Among these were Marsilio Ficino’s De christiana religione, Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria, Cristoforo Landino’s commentaries on Dante’s Commedia, and Francesco Berlinghieri’s Septe giornate della geographia. Many of these books were printed in vernacular Italian.

Despite his prominence, Niccolò has remained an enigma. A meticulous historical detective, Böninger pieces together the thorough portrait that scholars have been missing. In doing so, he illuminates not only Niccolò’s life but also the Italian printing revolution generally. Combining Renaissance studies’ traditional attention to bibliographic and textual concerns with a broader social and economic history of printing in Renaissance Italy, Böninger provides an unparalleled view of the business of printing in its earliest years. The story of Niccolò di Lorenzo furnishes a host of new insights into the legal issues that printers confronted, the working conditions in printshops, and the political forces that both encouraged and constrained the publication and dissemination of texts.

Reviews

A richly contextualized portrait of a premodern entrepreneur, one assuredly of interest to inquisitive business historians…[A] concise and diligent economic biography.
-- Robert Fredona Business History Review

[This book is] the first full-length study of this still rather elusive figure, and as such makes an important contribution to the scholarship of early printing in Italy…we owe Böninger our gratitude for his painstaking reconstruction of these relationships and social and legal interactions in a charged period of Florentine history, and for his further contribution to widening our knowledge of the intellectual history of the Quattrocento.
-- Guyda Armstrong Renaissance and Reformation

Lorenz Böninger has undoubtedly performed an immense service for our understanding of the history of early printing in the cradle of the Renaissance.
-- Neil Harris The Library

An ambitious and successful effort to shed light on the social conditions, human networks, and labor practices that underpinned the earliest book production in one of the fifteenth century’s most dynamic—but also mercurial—centers. Building upon his numerous excellent essays and books on artisan culture and immigrant communities in Renaissance Florence, Böninger fills an extremely important lacuna in our knowledge of early Italian printing.
-- Sean Roberts, author of Printing a Mediterranean World

A tour de force of scholarship. Böninger has done a brilliant job of combining known and unknown documents with the literature on the pertinent literary, economic, social, and religious history to create the best and fullest history of Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna and his world to date.
-- John Monfasani, author of Greeks and Latins in Renaissance Italy

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Frontmatter
i

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Contents
v

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Introduction
1

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Part I. The Introduction of Printing in Florence
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1. Bernardo Cennini and His Family Enterprise, 1471–1472
15

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2. Giorgio di Niccolò Baldesi, Giovanni di Piero da Magonza, and Partners, 1470–1473
19

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3. Wool Trade and Printing
29

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Part II. Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna’s First Years of Activity
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4. In the Service of the Mercanzia, 1464–1475
37

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5. The Collaboration with Giovanni di Piero da Magonza, and Marsilio Ficino’s De Christiana religione, ca. 1474–1476
43

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6. Cappone Capponi and His Circle, 1475–1480
47

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7. Printing for the Convent of Santo Spirito, ca. 1476–1477
50

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8. Institutional and Private Commissions, ca. 1476–1480
53

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9. The End of the Company, 1480–1482
66

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Part III. At the Peak of Niccolò di Lorenzo’s Career
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1.0 A Work Proposal for the Ripoli Press, 11 November 1480
71

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11. Cristoforo Landino’s Commented Edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1481)
75

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12. From Cristoforo Landino’s Disputationes camaldulenses (1480?) to Francesco Berlinghieri’s Geographia (1481–1482)
83

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13. From Niccolò Perotti’s Rudimenta grammatices (1483) to Saint Gregory’s Morali (1483–1486)
88

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14. Baptista Siculus and Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria (1485)
96

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Epilogue
101

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Abbreviations
113

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Appendix A. Books Printed by Niccolò Di Lorenzo Della Magna or Attributed to his Press
115

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Appendix B. Documents
119

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Notes
133

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Bibliography
179

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Index
201

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Publishing information

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

eBook published on:

April 30, 2021

eBook ISBN:

9780674258730

Pages and Images/Illustrations in book

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674258730

eBook ISBN: 9780674258730

Harvard University Press

Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna and the Social World of Florentine Printing, ca. 1470–1493

Overview

About this book

Reviews

Topics

Table of contents

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction

1. Bernardo Cennini and His Family Enterprise, 1471–1472

2. Giorgio di Niccolò Baldesi, Giovanni di Piero da Magonza, and Partners, 1470–1473

3. Wool Trade and Printing

4. In the Service of the Mercanzia, 1464–1475

5. The Collaboration with Giovanni di Piero da Magonza, and Marsilio Ficino’s De Christiana religione, ca. 1474–1476

6. Cappone Capponi and His Circle, 1475–1480

7. Printing for the Convent of Santo Spirito, ca. 1476–1477

8. Institutional and Private Commissions, ca. 1476–1480

9. The End of the Company, 1480–1482

1.0 A Work Proposal for the Ripoli Press, 11 November 1480

11. Cristoforo Landino’s Commented Edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1481)

12. From Cristoforo Landino’s Disputationes camaldulenses (1480?) to Francesco Berlinghieri’s Geographia (1481–1482)

13. From Niccolò Perotti’s Rudimenta grammatices (1483) to Saint Gregory’s Morali (1483–1486)

14. Baptista Siculus and Leon Battista Alberti’s De re aedificatoria (1485)

Epilogue

Abbreviations

Appendix A. Books Printed by Niccolò Di Lorenzo Della Magna or Attributed to his Press

Appendix B. Documents

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Bibliographic data