Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

THE legislation of the Venetian Republic in regard to privileges, monopolies, and copyrights was more continuous and more important than that of any Italian State. In fact, the enactments of the other States for the supervision of printing and for the encouragement and protection of literary productions were so far similar to those of Venice (upon which many of them had probably been modelled) that the series of Venetian laws can be taken as fairly representative of the general system prevailing in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The requirements of my subject will, therefore, be most conveniently met by confining my record for Italy to a summary of the copyright legislation of Venice, in place of undertaking to give the details for each Italian city in which printing was carried on. For the data of this record I am largely indebted to the scholarly treatise of Horatio F. Brown, on The Venetian Printing Press, to which previous reference has been made.

The action of the Government in regard to the book-trade presents itself in two main divisions: the first including the steps taken to protect and encourage the new art and those concerned in it; and the second, the measures planned to protect the State from certain dangers which it was dreaded might be brought upon it by the operations of the Press. Under the first heading are to be classed monopolies, copyrights, patents, and protection against foreign competition; while under the second come the measures of censorship—religious, moral, and political. The term “privilegii” was applied to all copyrights, patents, monopolies, and special concessions having to do with books and printing.

Between 1469 and 1517, these privilegii were, as a rule, granted by the College or Cabinet of Venice, and their record is to be found in the Minutes of the Cabinet. Occasionally, however, the Senate conferred the privilege, and sometimes a concession was issued under the direction of the chiefs of the Council. While privileges appear to have been freely granted to all bona fide applicants, the Government did not make the securing of a privilege obligatory upon the publisher.

The first kind of privilege was a simple monopoly, under which the Government granted to the beneficiary for a term of years the sole right to print or to sell a whole class of books. The earliest Venetian privilege on record, which is also probably the earliest in Italy, was that of 1469, under which a monopoly was given to John of Speyer, for a period of five years, for the printing of books in Venice. Fortunately for the development in this city of the art of printing and of the business of publishing, John died shortly after securing this monopoly. It was not continued to his heirs, and Jenson, Nicolas of Frankfort, and their associates were left free to push their printing operations as they saw fit.

The second class of privilege was that securing to an author the copyright in his production. This constitutes, of course, a recognition of the existence of literary property and of the rights of literary producers. The earliest record of such a copyright in Venice (and also the earliest for Italy) bears date September 1, 1486. It secures to Mr. Antonio Sabellico, historian to the Republic, for apparently an indefinite term, the sole right to publish, or to authorise the publication of, his Decades rerum Venetarium. The penalty for infringement was five hundred ducats. The words of the concession are worth quoting, as, in securing for the author a literary proprietorship in his work, it established a precedent of great importance:

Quod opus prefatum per Marcum Antonium prefatum dari possit alicui diligenti impressori qui opus illud imprimat suis sumptibus et edat et nemini præter eum liceat opus illud imprimi facere.[144]

In the year 1493, a more formal and explicit recognition of literary proprietorship was given in the privilege granted to Daniele Barbaro, securing to him for ten years a copyright in the work of his deceased brother Hermolao Barbaro, the Castigationes Plinii. In January, 1492, a copyright for an unspecified term was granted to Peter of Ravenna for his work Phœnix or Fœnix. The form used is the same as that of the privilege given to Sabellico. No one is to print the work except under the authority of the author. Klostermann and others have referred to this privilege for Peter’s Phœnix as the earliest instance in Europe of government recognition of an author’s copyright, but, as we have seen, the protection given to Sabellico antedates this by nearly six years.

The third class of privilege is that securing to an editor or publisher a copyright for works not of his own (literary) production, and it is of this class that the instances are the most numerous. The earliest example of a copyright to an editor is that granted, in 1493, to Joannes Nigro for his edition of Haliabas. The formula is the same as that used in the copyrights to authors. In the same year a copyright (also without a term limitation) was given to the printer-publisher Bernadino de Benaliis for the work by Giustiniani, entitled De Origine Urbis Venetiarum.[145]

In connection with this class of copyrights, abuses soon arose. Copyrights were secured by a number of printers, or printer-publishers, for works which they never issued, and which, in not a few cases, they apparently never intended to issue. The possession of these privileges was used to obtain from bona fide publishers purchase moneys for which no service had been rendered either to the community or to the individuals, and when these moneys could not be afforded or were not paid, there resulted a block in publishing undertakings.

The fourth kind of privilege conceded by the Venetian College was of the nature of a patent rather than a copyright. It secured a protection for improvements and developments in the art of printing, or for specific classes of literature. In 1496, for instance, a privilege was given to Aldus by the Venetian Government, for a term of twenty years, for all books that he might print in Greek text. In connection with this copyright, he secured what might be called a patent right for his particular character of Greek type and for his special method of printing. In his petition he represented that in the making of these Greek fonts, he had invested a large part of his resources.

In 1501, Aldus obtained a copyright of ten years for all works printed in the cursive or italic character, of which he claimed the invention, and which possessed the special advantage of compactness. The Greek type was said to have been modelled on the script of Musurus, as the cursive was a fac-simile of the writing of Boccaccio.

In 1498, a monopoly for the term of twenty-five years was granted to Terracina for all books printed in Arabic, Moorish, Syriac, Armenian, Indian, and Barbary. Throughout the sixteenth century, a number of patents were granted for improvements in the art of printing.

The four classes of privileges thus far cited were concerned with the protection of the individual producer against competition within the Venetian State. A fifth kind of privilege had for its purpose the protection of Venetian printing and publishing as a whole against the competition of foreign rivals. The Government of Venice upheld what would now be called a protective system, and it undertook to secure its industries against interference or competition from foreigners.

In the printing privilege granted to John of Speyer, in 1469, provision was made to prohibit the importation of books printed elsewhere, a provision that, if strictly enforced, must have weighed rather heavily upon Venetian scholars and students, and in necessitating the reprinting, for a comparatively small community, of any books required for Venetian readers, must have tended to keep the price of those books high.

In all the privileges subsequently granted appears a provision prohibiting the importation of any foreign edition of the work securing Venetian copyright. Such a prohibition, however, is of course in line with the restrictive and protective features of modern copyright law, and is a very different thing from the attempt made in the edict of 1769, previously quoted, to prevent the importation into Venetian territory of any books printed abroad. The former restriction constitutes an essential feature of any system of copyright, while the latter was a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the theory of “protection to home industries.” In 1519, in a copyright granted to Manenti, physician to the Duke of Urbino, appears the condition that the book securing Venetian copyright must be printed in Venetian territory; and in the copyrights issued thereafter this proviso is seldom omitted. A similar provision finds place in a number of the copyright enactments of later times, the most recent instance being the American law of 1891.

The applications for privileges or copyrights submitted by the printer-publishers were quite frequently accompanied by special reasons why in each particular case such a petition should be granted. Sometimes it was on the ground of the general excellence of their printing and their guaranty that the edition now proposed shall possess special beauty and accuracy of typography; sometimes they engage to secure the highest grade of scholarship for the text revision and for the editorial work; again they will plead poverty or distress, or large families to support, or special need of some kind.

In the year 1493, we have an example of an application for a privilege being accompanied by a certificate from certain competent authorities as to the value and the importance for the community of the work to be published.[146] The applicant was Bernardino de Benaliis, and the publications in question were the works of Beato Lorenzo Giustiniani and of Tartagni da Imola. Benaliis submitted from a number of the doctors in law at the University of Padua certificates as to the value of the book.

Foreigners made a practice of supporting their petitions with letters of commendation, either from the ambassadors of their own states, or of some other of the foreign ambassadors. The applications or petitions were not always granted, and, occasionally, conditions were attached upon which the continued validity of the privilege was made to depend. Such conditions fell into four general divisions, concerned with, first, the quality of the work to be produced, secondly (though infrequently) the speed of its production, thirdly the price at which it was to be sold, and fourthly the rights of the producers, i.e., publishers. As an example of the first kind can be noted the privilege granted to Benaliis, already cited, under which he is bound not to publish the works of Tartagni without those of Giustiniani, nor vice versa, and he must further guarantee to print the volumes in the finest style of typography and with the most correct text.

The privilege given in 1494 for certain books to be issued by Matteo de Codeca, is coupled with the condition that the volumes are to be sold at a “fair price” (pretio honestissimo), and a similar term is used in the privilege given in 1496 to Landriano. In a certain number of the privileges, principally those of earlier date, we find the condition that the works must be published within a year from the date of the application, or must be printed at a certain rate per week.

The College kept no register of the privileges issued by it other than the entries in its minutes, and it happened not infrequently, as the number of petitions increased, that exclusive privileges for the same work were granted to different applicants. Conflicts naturally arose between two publishers claiming control of the same work, but when any cases of the kind were brought up for adjudication, they were decided in favour of the privileges bearing the earliest date, providing always that the condition of publishing within a certain term had been complied with. As a result of these complications, however, the practice came to be adopted of attaching to a privilege a saving clause to the effect that it should be invalid in case any earlier privilege should already have been issued for the same work.

Among other instances of such a proviso, Brown quotes that included in the privilege granted, in 1493, to Calcedonio, which closes thus: declarato, quod hæc gratia intelligatur casu quo opera ipsa sint nova, et aliquis alius jam non cœperit illa imprimere, vel sibi promissum fuerit. Another form, occurring in 1502, was dummodo prius dicta volumina non fuerint impressa.[147]

The Minutes of the College were not open to the inspection of the public, and it appears that no subject indexes were kept of the business transacted, while, as before said, no attempts were made to preserve any list or register of the privileges issued. The printers and publishers had, therefore, no safe means of ascertaining whether or not they were infringing a previous copyright.

The average term of the earlier privileges was ten years. In the latter half of the sixteenth century, however, it became the practice to grant longer terms. There are examples, in 1569, of privileges of twenty years, and, in 1596, of twenty-four and twenty-five years. The terms varied, however, very greatly, and it is difficult to trace the grounds upon which a longer or a shorter time was decided upon. We find instances of one year, five years, ten years, fifteen years, etc.

The copyrights run sometimes from the date of the application and sometimes from that of the publication. After 1505, the practice obtained of granting prolongations of privileges in cases in which good cause had been shown for such prolongation. An instance of such an extension is the case of Leonardo Crasso’s edition of the works of Polifilo, for which, in 1508, a second copyright term of ten years was granted on the ground that the wars had prevented the publisher from getting back his investment. The principal difficulty with these earlier privileges was the absence of any machinery to secure their enforcement or the protection of the owners of the copyrights. Brown says that there is no instance or record of a suit being brought by one printer against another for infringement of copyright. Complaints for infringement were presented from time to time to the College or to the Council of Ten. In 1499, the Council of Ten issued an order to publishers to respect the copyrights granted to Antonio Moretto of Brescia.

In 1495, Biondo and Giambattista secured for ten years a privilege in the Letters of S. Catherine of Siena. The same work was, however, published by Aldus in 1500, five years before Biondo’s privilege had expired. The Letters of Phalaris were published in 1498 by Braccio, and in 1499 by Aldus, and there appears to have been no determination of the question to whom the privilege or copyright belonged. The whole business of copyrights resting upon individual privileges fell into confusion, and the difficulties in the way of protecting literary property must have seriously interfered with the development of publishing undertakings.

It must be remembered also, that these privileges, even if not interfered with, covered the control of but a limited market, that, namely, comprised in the territory of the Venetian Republic. In any other States of Italy, the reprinters were, of course, free to appropriate the results of the enterprise of the Venetian publishers and of their expenditures for manuscripts, editorial service, etc.; while the Venetians had, of course, the same freedom in utilising the works initiated in Rome, Florence, Milan, or Verona. In competing for markets outside of Italy, however, the Venetian publishers had the advantage of the wide commercial connections possessed by their city.

With an entire absence of protection for his literary undertakings outside of his own State, it was, of course, of first importance that, within these limits at least, the publisher should have secured to him the results of his planning, his labours, and his investment. Such security was, however, given but very inadequately by the system of privileges. The penalties attached to infringements hardly acted as deterrents, principally because there was no effective machinery for their enforcement. These penalties comprised the confiscation of the contraband material, with fines varying (for each unauthorised copy of the book) from twenty soldi to one thousand ducats. The latter was the fine prescribed, in 1515, in the case of a piratical edition of Ariosto. The fine, when collected, was usually divided into three parts, one third going to the court, one third to the complainant, and one third to some city charity. Occasionally, though very rarely, there was added to the penalty a sentence of confinement in prison for one or two months. There are one or two instances also of suspension of the offender from the exercise of the art of printing. Complaints concerning infringement could usually be brought before any magistrate of the Republic; but in some cases it was specified in the privilege itself that a trial for its contravention should be held before a special court, such as that of the fiscal procurators, or of the police magistrates. What uniformity of procedure came finally to be established, was due, however, less to the regulations of the law than to the precedents established by the printers and publishers.

As in the case of the privileges, the censorship was, for something more than half a century, that is, from 1469 to 1528, carried on without the aid of any general law, and was based simply upon a practice or series of precedents evolved from the individual action taken by the Government in each instance as it arose. The granting of privileges had, as we have seen, been the duty sometimes of the College, sometimes of the Senate. The responsibility concerning censorship rested naturally with the Council of Ten, which in its capacity as a standing committee of safety, assumed a general charge of the morals of the community.

The censorship of the Press in Venice, as elsewhere, was concerned with three aspects of literature: the religious, the moral (which included the political), and the purely literary. Morality was considered from both the public and the private or personal point of view, the former including as its chief consideration the safety of the State.

The operation of the censorship was marked by the presence of an imprimatur or record of authorisations. As has already been noted, applications for a privilege were occasionally accompanied by a certificate or testamur from certain competent authorities, who had examined the work in question and who were willing to certify as to its soundness and importance.

The earliest example of an ecclesiastical testamur printed in a book published in Venice, appears at the beginning of the Nosce Te, issued by Jenson in 1480. The Nosce Te was a book of devotion, written by a Carthusian monk, Giovanni di Dio, and the testamur in this case might, therefore, be interpreted simply as an approval by his ecclesiastical superiors of the work done by him as an ecclesiastic. There is no record that the Nosce Te ever secured a privilege from the Venetian Government, and it seems certain that at the date in question no such testamur was required under the regulations of the secular government.

No further instance of a clerical testamur occurs before 1505, when Jacomo di Penzi, of Lecco, a printer, in applying to the Council for a privilege for certain books he desired to print, states that he has an imprimatur from the Council of Ten, and a testamur from the Patriarch as to the merit of one of the works, the Tre famosissime Questioni, by Zane, Archbishop of Spalato. In the year 1508, we have the first example of an ecclesiastical testamur being required by the Council of Ten, as a condition for their own imprimatur. The work was the Universalis animæ traditionis liber quintus of Gregoriis, and the ecclesiastical censor appointed to examine the work from a theological point of view, reported that he found in it nothing opposed to Catholic verity.

This is the first instance of a religious censorship exercised by the secular government. The case may be considered as fairly indicating the position the Venetian Government proposed to take in regard to the supervision of books touching upon theological matters. The State had a personal interest in protecting the Church against the attacks of books likely to be subversive of the faith, and it was glad to secure the opinion of the Church in regard to the character or tendency of a doubtful work; but it intended to retain in its own hands the final decision as to the permission to print; and it contended that the interests of Church and State could be best protected by the State taking action for both. The conclusion arrived at was, therefore, that there should be religious censorship, but that the censor should act only through powers delegated to him by the secular government.

A case occurring in 1516 shows, however, that this policy speedily became modified. Soardi, a publisher, applied for an imprimatur for certain theological works. The Council of Ten replies that as Soardi has already secured the testamurs of the Patriarch and the Inquisitor, they, quoad se, have no objection to offer, and permittunt fieri quantum præfati Reverendissimus et Inquisitor concessere.[148] Brown accepts this phrase, quoad se, which occurs also in later imprimaturs, as evidence that the Council of Ten had practically resigned the direct control of the religious censorship, and had accepted the Patriarch and the Inquisitor as the proper persons to deal with the responsibility. It is still, however, the secular authority and not the ecclesiastical which grants the imprimatur, and the term permittunt fieri implies that the permit was necessary and could be withheld. In this same year, 1515, a claim was raised by the Papal Government which, later, gave rise to many disputes between the Church and the Republic of Venice, and also between the Church and several other of the States of Italy.

The Holy See assumed the right to grant copyrights and imprimaturs in States other than those of the Church, and to support these monopolies by the threat of spiritual punishments. The earliest instance of such a contention was that of Fra Felice of Prato, a converted Jew, who secured from the Pope, for certain Hebrew books and translations of the same, a copyright which covered not only the States of the Church but all the States of Europe. The punishment of excommunication was threatened against any who refused to recognise this copyright or who committed infringements against it. Fra Felice, desiring to print his book in Venice, and apparently distrusting the adequacy of the Pope’s privilege, applied to the College for a copyright for ten years, which was duly granted to him; while the College of Venice apparently made no comments upon the Papal brief which had also undertaken to give him authority for Venice. Later on, the Venetian Government found occasion to make vigorous protests against similar contentions from Rome.

The second class of censorship, that relating to literary quality, also developed but gradually. The need for some kind of literary supervision is indicated by the publishers themselves, who in their petitions make reference to the misprints and scandalous errors in editions previously produced, and promise that their own editions shall be printed with the utmost care and accuracy.

The earliest instance of the establishment of a literary censorship was in 1503, when the Senate made Marcus Musurus censor of all books printed in Greek. Thirteen years later Musurus was still holding the office.

In 1515, an order was issued by the Council of Ten which established a general censorship for the literature of the Humanities. The order was worded as follows: “In all parts of the world, and in the famous cities not only of Italy but also of barbarous countries, that the honour of the nation may be preserved, it is not allowed to publish works until they shall have been examined by the most learned person available. But in this our city, so famous and so worthy, no thought has as yet been bestowed on this matter, whence it comes to pass that the most incorrect editions which appear before the world are those issued in Venice, to the dishonour of the city. Be it, therefore, charged upon our noble Andrea Navagero to examine all works in Humanity which, for the future, may be printed; and without his signature in the volumes they shall not be printed, under pain of being confiscated and burned, and a fine of three hundred ducats for him who disobeys this order.” This is the first Italian example of a general or prevention censorship, applied to a whole class of literature.[149]

The third kind of censorship concerned itself with the morals of literature, political morality, the attitude of the writer or of the publisher towards the State or rather towards government, and private morality, having to do with the influence of the book upon decency and bonos mores. The Government of Venice was peculiarly sensitive in regard to any criticism, direct or indirect, of its public documents. In 1515, the Council of Ten granted permission to Marino Sanuto, who was engaged in the preparation of a history of the operations of Charles VIII. in Italy, to examine the State Papers of more than two years back, on the condition that the work should, when completed, be submitted for the approval of the Council, before any one else should have seen it. Later in the same year, an imprimatur was granted to Andrea Mocenigo for his history of the League of Cambrai, the work having been examined and approved by the Grand Chancellor, who had the special custody of the State Papers.

The political censorship was apparently more effective than the censorship of morals. It was certainly the case that the imprimatur was given to not a few books of a scandalous character.

In 1527, Alvise Cynthio (or Fabritii) published a work on The Origin of Vulgar Proverbs. He had secured from the Senate a copyright for ten years, which prohibited any one from reprinting the collection unless he should add to the material as many new proverbs as were contained in the original. Cynthio took occasion to say in one of his editorial paragraphs that he intended to show the true character of those who pretended to follow the rule of S. Francis. The Franciscans naturally found objections to the book, and registered a complaint against it on the ground of heresy and indecency.

The Council of Ten issued in January, 1526-1527 a general order, reciting that, owing to the freedom which everyone enjoys in Venice, it sometimes happens that obscene and corrupt works issue from the Press. It is, therefore, decreed that for future publications, the imprimatur of the Council of Ten shall be required, and that before this is given, the work must have been examined by two censors, who shall make a sworn report that its character is satisfactory. This order is of importance as being the first official recognition of the necessity of a moral censorship.

The censors who examined Cynthio’s volume, ordered the author to expunge the obnoxious passages. In the meantime, however, the monks took the matter into their own hands (although they claimed to act with the authority of the Council) and carried off from the printer’s shop all the copies on hand. Cynthio petitioned the Council for their restoration, and the printer put in a claim on his part that the volumes should be replaced in his hands until his printing account had been paid. An order to such effect was given, but apparently only a small portion of the volumes were received, the others having disappeared while in the custody of the monks. Copies of the work have since been extremely rare. The author is reported to have died a violent death.[150]

Up to this time there had been no attempt to formulate a code of laws for the regulation of the Press; such action as had been taken by the Government, had been in the shape of isolated decrees, or special acts prepared to meet specific cases. There was no such thing as preventive legislation; it was always planned either to present a remedy for some immediate difficulty or to repress some specific wrong-doing. The lines upon which the press-code of Venice was finally promulgated had, however, been gradually indicated by the customs and precedents established for particular cases.

Before the period of general legislation, the practice had, as we have seen, been arrived at by securing, first from the College, and later from the Senate, privileges, taking the shape either of monopolies or of copyrights; while for the imprimatur or authority to print, application was made to the Council of Ten. The first law of censorship made such imprimatur obligatory. The censorship of the character of the books thus fell upon the Ten, which retained in its own hands the direct control of the political censorship and delegated to ecclesiastical examiners the task of theological censorship, accepting, as a rule, the report of such examiners as final. When, later, it was found necessary to give consideration not only to the political and theological influence of books, but to their literary quality and their moral character, these divisions of the censorship were also assumed by the Council of Ten.

In 1487, was issued the first Papal Bull having to do with the productions of the printing-press. It was addressed by Pope Innocent VIII. to seven governments as follows: Romana, Curia, Italia, Germania, Francia, Hispania, Anglia, and Scotia. It is entitled: Bulla S. D. N. Innocentii contra Impressores Librorum Rebrobatorum, and was printed in Rome in 1487. The opening paragraph reads: Et ea propter nos qui illius locum tenemus in terris qui ad illuminandum hominum mentes et errorum tenebros exterminandum descendit e coelis (and, therefore, we who hold on earth the place of Him who came down from heaven to enlighten the minds of men and to disperse the darkness of error).

The Bull does not appear to have attracted any special attention in Venice, and the Government of the Republic continued to frame in its own way the regulations for the control of the printers.

The legislative bodies of the State were the Senate and the Council of Ten. The earliest legislation for the regulation of the Press (unless we may count as a law the general order of the Ten, previously referred to, establishing a literary censorship for works in Humanity) was a law of the Senate passed August 1, 1517. This law recalled every privilege heretofore granted, placing in the public domain, open for the use of any one, all of the works named in these cancelled privileges.

The purpose of this law was to sweep away a mass of obstruction, and in giving full freedom to printing undertakings, to further the development of Venetian publishing. Among its advocates were many of the printer-publishers, who were willing to lose their property rights in existing copyrights for the sake of getting rid of the evils that had arisen from the accumulation of overlapping privileges, or of privileges which had been secured not for direct use but for obstruction and for sale, and of privileges which on various grounds had not been obtained in good faith. Under the law of 1517, privileges were thereafter to require a two-thirds vote in the Senate and were to be issued only for works which were new or which had not before been printed. (Solum pro libris et operibus novis, numquam antea impressis et non pro aliis.)

The next law, that of 1526, has already been referred to in connection with the case of Cynthio’s Origin of Vulgar Proverbs. It provided that no book should be printed without the imprimatur of the Council, and that this imprimatur should be granted only after the book had been approved by two censors appointed by the Council as free from scandalous or objectionable matter.

In 1533, the question of copyright was again attracting attention. The law of 1517 had not worked well, and abuses had arisen under it. No definition had been given limiting or constructing the term opus novum, and the contention had been made that very slight additions or alterations in a book already published would constitute it a new work within the meaning of the act. It was only necessary for a publisher to make application, under such a contention, for a copyright for a previously unprinted classic, to prevent the work from being printed by any other publisher.

A decree was now issued ordering that a publisher must complete the publication of a work within twelve months from the date of securing his copyright, under pain of the forfeiture of the copyright. A modification was afterwards made under which, if the work was too large to be completed within a year, the copyright could be preserved by the production of not less than one folio a day. If the work were printed out of Venice, the copyright was forfeited. No publisher could apply twice for a copyright for the same work. The matter of prices was also gone into; and publishers were directed to submit to the Bureau of Arts and Industries an advance copy of each new book, which was to be appraised by experts and the price set by them was to be that at which the book should be published. No copies were to be sold at any higher price.

In 1537, a further law was enacted, directed to the protection of the interests of the consumer, and to the wholesome development of the trade of book-manufacturing. The preamble speaks of “the ruinous and disgraceful practices of the Venetian printers,” who used to be the best in the world, and complains that now, for the sake of gain, they use vile paper that will not hold the ink and that cannot be written upon with marginal notes. This blemish cannot be due to any difficulty in securing proper material, as foreign books come to Venice printed on excellent paper.

It is, therefore, ordered that under a penalty of forfeiture of copyright and a fine of one hundred ducats, all copyrighted books must be printed on paper that can be written upon without blotting. This penalty shall be incurred if of any edition five copies blot, and a copy shall be held to be defective if any five leaves in it blot. Pamphlets and books below the value of ten soldi are excepted from the provisions of the law. New books are again defined as works which have never been published before. The execution of the law is given to the Avogadori di Comun, the law officers of the State.[151]

The enactments of 1542-1543 give evidence that the regulations for the supervision of the publishing trade had not yet produced satisfactory results, and that there was no little irritation on the part of the Government at their failure. The Council complains that, contrary to the censorial law of 1526, its imprimatur was not always sought for new publications, and that, as a result of this non-observance, books were being printed and sold which offended the honour of God, were repugnant to the Christian Faith, and were in many instances most licentious. To remedy these evils, it was decreed that the printers of unlicensed books should be fined fifty ducats, in addition to the penalties previously decreed. The booksellers dealing in them were to be fined twenty-five ducats, while those who hawked unlicensed books about the streets were to be flogged from S. Mark’s to the Rialto, and to be imprisoned for six months. A publisher using a false imprint was to be imprisoned for twelve months, and then banished from Venice in perpetuity.

In spite of these severe penalties, the law does not appear to have secured more satisfactory obedience than had been given to the previous decrees. As Brown points out, the law was probably not supported by public opinion.

In 1544, the Commissioners of the University of Padua were constituted the permanent censors of Venetian books submitted for the imprimatur of the Council. The censorship of the Commissioners covered all points excepting those relating to religion or theology, which were still left to be passed upon by ecclesiastical censors.

In 1544-5, the Council of Ten gave attention to the question of the ownership of literary productions. In no one of the several acts that had been passed for the regulation of the Press, had it been made apparent whether literary property was brought into existence as property, by the process of securing the copyright, or whether it existed, ipso facto, in the author of a work. In the latter case, the copyright entry and the issue of the privilege constituted simply an official recognition of the right and not a creation of it. During the half century in which their business had been carried on, the printer-publishers in Venice (in common with those of the rest of Europe) were in the habit of ignoring literary proprietorship altogether, and were accustomed to print any work they pleased, even in direct opposition to the wishes of the author. It became evident that some measure for the protection of the author was necessary, and in the year 1544-5, a decree was issued forbidding anyone to print or to sell a work without having first presented to the Rifformatori (the University Commissioners) documentary proof of the consent of the author or of his representatives.

All books printed without the consent of the author were to be confiscated and burned; the printer was to be fined one ducat for each copy of the book printed, and was to be imprisoned for one month. In 1547, a fresh attempt was made to restrain the sale of blasphemous or obscene books.

One manner in which the law of 1543 had been evaded was by importing books of a character for which an imprimatur in Venice could not have been secured. Brown says that in a number of cases, however, books of a scandalous character, sold as importations, had really been printed in Venice, the foreign imprint being forged. It was now ordered that any one importing scandalous books should pay a fine of fifty ducats, the books themselves being also forfeited.

The Savii Sopra l’Eresia, the three Venetian noblemen who served as assessors to the Holy Office, and who now had in their hands the examination of new publications with reference to matters of religion or doctrine, were charged with the supervision also of imported books. The Lutheran heresy was beginning to be promulgated by means of the Press, and the ecclesiastical authorities were, therefore, especially suspicious of literature coming from Germany.

In 1548, the first catalogue of prohibited books was issued in Venice. The addition to the regular executive of the three Commissioners on Heresy indicates as well a greater activity on the part of the Church in regard to the supervision of literature, as a readiness on the part of the Government to accept this ecclesiastical coöperation as long as, in form at least, the State was recognised as the controlling authority in the matter.

The year 1548-9 marks an era in the history of printing and publishing not only in Venice, but of the world. In that year, under a decree of the Council dated January 18th, the printers, publishers, and booksellers of Venice were organised into a guild. The very natural reason assigned for the formation of such a guild was that the trade in question was the only important trade in the city that was not already so organised. We find, however, as an additional reason, which doubtless acted as an important incentive, the necessity of so organising the business of the production of books that the work of the Commissioners of Heresy in discovering and in punishing the publishers of heretical books, should be facilitated.

The Guild of Venice had, as we have seen, been brought into existence not merely for the protection of trade interests, but for the purpose of facilitating the work of the State and of the Church in keeping a close supervision upon all the productions of the Press, and of promptly suppressing those likely to prove pernicious. The regulations framed by the Guild and the enactments secured by it were of service in defining literary property and in protecting copyrights, but this result was rather an incidental than an essential part of its work.

Seventeen years elapsed after the decree of 1548, before the organisation of the corporation was fully completed through the formulation of its by-laws; but from various references during that time, it seems evident that shortly after 1548, an association was in existence with a President and a Council, exercising some general supervision over the printers and publishers. When the Guild was finally organised, it appears to have been a more official and more authoritative body than the London Company of Stationers. Its officers comprised a prior, two councillors, six assessors, a secretary, and a beadle. Membership in the Guild was compulsory upon all master-printers, publishers, and booksellers, and each member was to pay annually the sum of one lira, five soldi. The list of officials included two syndics, one of whom was to be present at each election and to administer the oath of office to the new officers. No member was permitted to decline either nomination or election, under a penalty of ten ducats. No member of the Guild could hold office unless during five years previous he had been a master-printer or had kept a book-shop. The by-laws of the Guild were called Mariegole, a term which is said to come from Matricule, or matriculation books.

The Guild thus constituted, outlived the Government that had created it and many succeeding governments. It even survived the Republic and the period of revolutions and of Napoleonic invasions; and came to a close only with the first decade of the present century, after an existence of more than two hundred and fifty years. The Stationers’ Company of London still exists under that name, but its control over the printing and publishing trades of England disappeared many years before the dissolution of the Guild of Venice.

The Guild appears to have moved but slowly in the work of controlling the printing and the book-trade of the city; it was not until 1571 that it issued a decree (which apparently had the force of a decree of the Council) forbidding anyone not a member of the Guild from setting up a printing-press or opening a book-store. It was also forbidden for anyone to exercise any of the functions of a printer or a bookseller unless he had served a five years’ apprenticeship in Venice. Foreigners who desired to exercise the art of printing, or to carry on the business of bookselling, must first serve five years in some shop in Venice, and after examination and approval by the authorities of the Guild, must pay ten ducats for matriculation. The penalty for infringement of the above decree was fifty ducats.

A protest was made to the Proveditore di Comun concerning the authority of the Guild to make or to enforce any such regulation, but the Proveditore promptly confirmed the action of the Guild, and in so doing confirmed its authority to control the business of printing and book-selling.

This control seems, however, during no period to have been complete. Up to the year 1600, the Guild had at no time contained more than seventy-five members. In 1596, according to the reports of the Rifformatori, there were one hundred and twenty presses at work in Venice, and it was necessary to print one hundred and fifty copies of the Concordat of 1596, in order to distribute them among the booksellers of the city. It is probable, therefore, that the master-printers and book-sellers must together have exceeded seventy-five, and in that case the Guild could not have included them all. While the Guild claimed, as we have seen, full jurisdiction over the printers and booksellers, and claimed also the right to forbid any person to carry on these trades without having obtained a certificate of competence from its own examiners, it is probable that it lacked the power to enforce its authority or to carry into effect its decrees.

The establishment of a system of censorship did not meet all the difficulties in the way of a thorough supervision and regulation of literature. The University Commissioners, to whom had been referred the censorship other than ecclesiastical, were apparently not always able to make examination of all pending publications or did not, at least, always insist upon a personal examination. The publishers began to make a practice (on the ground of lightening the labours of the Commissioners) of having their forthcoming works examined by readers selected by themselves.

On the strength of a favourable report from these friendly examiners, the Commissioners would issue their certificate that the work contained nothing objectionable, and with this testamur the publishers would secure, without further question, the imprimatur of the Ten. Under this procedure a number of objectionable works found their way into print. The Commissioners finally, in 1562, gave orders to their secretary that thereafter no authorisations should be given for any printing whatsoever until the work had been examined and favourably reported upon, first, by the Inquisitor or one of his vicars, or by some person selected by the Tribunal of the Inquisition; second, by the Reader in philosophy or some other public reader; third, by a ducal secretary. The petitioner for a certificate was to bring a testamur signed by each of these, declaring that there was nothing in the book contrary to religion, nothing injurious to morality, and nothing hostile to princes, and that it was worthy to see the light. The testamurs should state the number of leaves in the book and must quote the first and last lines.

After the book had been printed, but before it was issued to the public, a copy was to be submitted to the Rifformatori in order that they might assure themselves that no additions or alterations had been made after the securing of the imprimatur. Each of the three persons who should examine the book was to be paid the sum of one bezzo for each leaf (sheet?). The bezzo was worth the one hundred and sixtieth part of a ducat. All the expenses connected with the three examinations and with the issue of the imprimatur must be borne by the petitioner.

Four years later, in 1566, it was ordered that all persons obtaining licences should, before printing their works, register their licences at the office of the Esecutori contro la Bestemmia, but for such registration there should be no charge. This is the first attempt that was made to institute a complete registry of the publications of Venice. Unfortunately, the law was persistently evaded, and the registers which have come down to us are very incomplete.

The system of censorship, as now completed, proved both cumbersome and irritating, and must have seriously interfered with the development of the publishing business of Venice. It was, however, not quite so exacting as might have been expected from the stringent nature of its provisions, for the reason that these were not and could not be effectively enforced. The Government of Venice lacked the means to enforce its literary regulations, and had no police adequate to the special requirements of these regulations.

While the censorship of the State became more or less nominal, that of the Church was enforced with comparative rigour, and exercised a very material influence on the selection of the literature to be printed. The Church had at hand a very effective machinery for the enforcement of its supervision, as every priest and every friar was ready to act as a policeman for the cause of ecclesiastical control over the Press.