Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna and the Social World of Florentine Printing, ca. 1470–1493 (I Tatti Studies in Italian Renaissance History)

225 Pages·2021·12.795 MB·English

by  Lorenz Böninger

i tatti studies in
italian ren ais sance history
Published in collaboration with I Tatti
The Harvard University Center for Italian Re nais sance Studies
Florence, Italy
general editor
Kate Lowe
NICCOLÒ DI
LORENZO
DELLA MAGNA
and the Social World of Florentine Printing,
ca. 1470–1493
l l l l l l l l l l l
L O R E N Z B Ö N I N G E R
Cambridge, Mass a chus etts
London, England
2021
Copyright © 2021 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
First printing
Jacket design: Tim Jones
Jacket art: engraving, from Novo Teatro di Machine et Edificii per Varie et Sicure Operationi, by
Vittorio Zonca. Photograph © DeA Picture Library / Art Resource
9780674258747 (EPUB)
9780674258730 (PDF)
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Böninger, Lorenz, author.
Title: Niccolò di Lorenzo della Magna and the social world of Florentine
printing, ca. 1470–1493 / Lorenz Böninger.
Other titles: I Tatti studies in Italian Re nais sance history.
Description: Cambridge, Mas sac hu setts : Harvard University Press, 2021. |
Series: I Tatti studies in Italian re nais sance history | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020041889 | ISBN 9780674251137 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Laurentii, Nicolaus, active 1475–1486. | Printers— Italy— Florence—
History—15th  century. | Publishers and publishing— Italy— History—
15th  century. | Florence (Italy)— Civilization.
Classification: LCC Z156.F5 B66 2021 | DDC 686.20945/511— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn. loc. gov/ 2020041889
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
I. THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING IN FLORENCE
1 Bernardo Cennini and His Family Enterprise, 1471–1472 15
2 Giorgio di Niccolò Baldesi, Giovanni di Piero da Magonza,
and Partners, 1470–1473 19
3 Wool Trade and Printing 29
II. NICCOLÒ DI LORENZO DELLA MAGNA’S
FIRST YEARS OF ACTIVITY
4 In the Ser vice of the Mercanzia, 1464–1475 37
5 The Collaboration with Giovanni di Piero da Magonza, and
Marsilio Ficino’s De Christiana religione, ca. 1474–1476 43
6 Cappone Capponi and His Circle, 1475–1480 47
7 Printing for the Convent of Santo Spirito, ca. 1476–1477 50
8 Institutional and Private Commissions, ca. 1476–1480 53
9 The End of the Com pany, 1480–1482 66
III. AT THE PEAK OF NICCOLÒ DI LORENZO’S C AREER
10 A Work Proposal for the Ripoli Press, 11 November 1480 71
11 Cristoforo Landino’s Commented Edition of Dante’s
Divine Comedy (1481) 75
12 From Cristoforo Landino’s Disputationes camaldulenses (1480?)
to Francesco Berlinghieri’s Geographia (1481–1482) 83
vi CONTENTS
13 From Niccolò Perotti’s Rudimenta grammatices (1483)
to Saint Gregory’s Morali (1483–1486) 88
14 Baptista Siculus and Leon Battista Alberti’s
De re aedificatoria (1485) 96
Epilogue 101
ABBREVIATIONS 113
APPENDIX A
BOOKS PRINTED BY NICCOLÒ DI LORENZO DELLA MAGNA
OR ATTRIBUTED TO HIS PRESS 115
APPENDIX B
DOCUMENTS 119
NOTES 133
BIBLIOGRAPHY 179
INDEX 201
l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l
NICCOLÒ DI LORENZO
DELLA MAGNA
AND THE SOCIAL WORLD of
FLORENTINE PRINTING,
ca. 1470–1493
l l l l l l l l l l l l l l

Introduction
I
n Italy, the printing revolution arrived step by step. Attention for the
unknown art grew slowly in the 1460s, when increasing numbers of
books produced in Western and Southern Germany arrived on the pen-
insula.1 Si mul ta neously, a young generation of printers spread out from
there in search of new opportunities.2 Some of them settled in Subiaco
and thereafter in Rome, where their presses began working in the middle
of the de cade. Elsewhere one had to wait u ntil 1470–1472, when a sudden
frenzy overcame impor tant centers like Bologna, Florence, Milan, or
Venice. In the dynamic and geog raph i cally mobile society of the time,
now even more individuals from dif fer ent backgrounds sought to learn
this promising craft from experienced printers. As must be stressed, the
complex typographical pro cess could not be improvised or reinvented
without the expertise of t hese “masters.” Such miraculous “reinventions”
were nevertheless more than once propagated, for instance, by the mys-
terious priest Clemente da Padova, who twice—in 1470 and 1472— offered
himself to introduce printing in the town of Lucca.3
From the very beginning, printing was “a meeting point of economic
forces,” as Brian Richardson formulated, and Re nais sance Florence was
1