Online Medieval Sources Bibliography

The scribe Filippo de Strata lived when the printing press was introduced to Venice and witnessed the resulting growth of printed book trade. Scholars disagree on de Strata’s religious order; some call him a Benedictine monk, others a Dominican friar, and still others a Dominican monk. The earliest evidence of de Strata is his signature in a manuscript dated November 15, 1450. Records indicate that he preached in Dalmatia and Ferrara, copied devotional texts and secular verse, and cultivated connections with powerful political figures in Venice. De Strata feared a market flooded with printed editions and exhorted the Doge Nicolò Marcello, the highest elected Venetian magistrate, to restrict the twelve printers operating in Venice at the time. In his work, he laments that these books are error-riddled and frequently forged, and he warns that the immorality in easily accessible classical texts endangers the reading public. De Strata’s tirades against printing were written in both Italian and Latin.