The book trade in the Italian Renaissance / by Angela Nuovo ; translated by Lydia G. Cochrane.

• Superior document: Library of the written word, v. 26
• Author: Nuovo, Angela.
• TeilnehmendeR: Cochrane, Lydia G.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Library of the written word ; 26.; Library of the written word. Handpress world ; 20.
• Physical Description: xv, 474 p. :; ill.
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

This work offers the first English-language survey of the book industry in Renaissance Italy. Whereas traditional accounts of the book in the Renaissance celebrate authors and literary achievement, this study examines the nuts and bolts of a rapidly expanding trade that built on existing economic practices while developing new mechanisms in response to political and religious realities. Approaching the book trade from the perspective of its publishers and booksellers, this archive-based account ranges across family ambitions and warehouse fires to publishers' petitions and convivial bookshop conversation. In the process it constructs a nuanced picture of trading networks, production, and the distribution and sale of printed books, a profitable but capricious commodity. Originally published in Italian as Il commercio librario nell’Italia del Rinascimento (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1998; second, revised edition, 2003), this present English translation has not only been updated but has also been deeply revised and augmented.

Table of Contents

The commercial network of The Company of Venice -- The development of commercial networks -- Press runs -- Warehouses -- Marks and branches -- The book privilege system -- Distribution -- Fairs -- Retail sales : distribution inside and outside of bookshops -- Shop inventories -- Managing a bookshop.