Printing and the Renaissance / A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York

This paper contends that the Renaissance made printing rather than vice versa, tracing antecedent traditions of manuscript production and book circulation. It surveys monastic scriptoria that preserved classical texts, the development of university libraries and regulated stationers who rented and sold textbooks under official oversight, and the later emergence of commercial bookshops and international trade in Greek manuscripts. The account stresses organized copying, institutional measures for accuracy, and the continuity of religious and scholarly networks that multiplied and transmitted literature, presenting printing as the culmination of preexisting practices rather than their starting point.