Lowry, Martin, ed.; Grier, Shelagh, trans., Polemic against Printing (Birmingham: Hayloft)
Text name(s): Polemic against Printing
Number of pages of primary source text: 10
Author(s):
Dates: 1473 - 1474
Archival Reference: Biblioteca Marciana of Venice, Italian MSS, Class I, 72 (5054), 1v-2r.
Original Language(s):
- Latin
Translation:
- Translated into English.
- Original language included.
Translation Comments: Facing page English translation of the Latin text
Geopolitical Region(s):
- Italy
- Europe
County/Region: Venice
Record Types:
- Literature - Verse
- Letter
Subject Headings:
- Material Culture: Food Clothing, Household
- Economy - Crafts and Industry
- Science / Technology
Apparatus:
- Introduction
Comments:
In his polemical poem, Filippo de Strata exhorts Doge Nicolò Marcello, the highest elected magistrate of Venice, to restrict printers and the trade of printed books. De Strata compares the printing press to a prostitute who corrupts the chastity of readers and writing itself.
The poem appears in a single manuscript, which is held in the Biblioteca Marciana of Venice. Lowry’s edition is the only printed publication of it as of 2015. Only 350 copies of the edition were made. It includes a short introduction (7 pp.), but lacks an apparatus.
Introduction Summary:
Lowry notes that de Strata was a Benedictine monk, theologian, and scribe who witnessed the printing press’s introduction to Venice and the resulting boom in book trade. He locates de Strata in Venice as early as November 1450 and his last writing in the late 1490s. Although he mentions other “great tirades” (6) against print that de Strata wrote, he does not cite them or list where they can be found.
Cataloger: KMB
