The introduction of movable type printing had revolutionary consequences for the production and circulation of literary texts. The replacement of a manual with a mechanical process for book reproduction immediately brought long-term mechanisms and methods into play, and laid the groundwork for a series of radical transformations. Latin texts composed during the middle Ages were inevitably caught up in these transformations. This article offers an account of the uneasy and sometimes belated passage of medieval Latin texts into the medium of print, and their eventual transformed emergence in modern critical editions. A brief census of medieval Latin works printed in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is quite instructive. It provides a snapshot of the book market's interests in terms of medieval Latin works, since the selections made by editors and printers were commercially driven. The works that became available to libraries in printed form indicate which among them made the greatest contribution to the shaping of subsequent centuries. The specific circumstances as well as the most important consequences affecting them are examined, both immediately and over the course of the following centuries.

Medieval Latin Texts in the Age of Printing / P. Chiesa - In: The Oxford handbook of medieval Latin literature / [a cura di] R.J. Hexter, D. Townsend. - Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012. - ISBN 978-0-19-539401-6. - pp. 573-592 [10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195394016.013.0027]

Medieval Latin Texts in the Age of Printing

P. Chiesa
Primo
2012

Abstract

The introduction of movable type printing had revolutionary consequences for the production and circulation of literary texts. The replacement of a manual with a mechanical process for book reproduction immediately brought long-term mechanisms and methods into play, and laid the groundwork for a series of radical transformations. Latin texts composed during the middle Ages were inevitably caught up in these transformations. This article offers an account of the uneasy and sometimes belated passage of medieval Latin texts into the medium of print, and their eventual transformed emergence in modern critical editions. A brief census of medieval Latin works printed in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is quite instructive. It provides a snapshot of the book market's interests in terms of medieval Latin works, since the selections made by editors and printers were commercially driven. The works that became available to libraries in printed form indicate which among them made the greatest contribution to the shaping of subsequent centuries. The specific circumstances as well as the most important consequences affecting them are examined, both immediately and over the course of the following centuries.
Settore L-FIL-LET/08 - Letteratura Latina Medievale e Umanistica
2012
Book Part (author)
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2434/177323
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