—The Venetian Guild of Printers and Booksellers, while nominally given a very general control over the printing and publishing operations in the Republic, was never in a position to exercise so direct an effective influence over this business as had been secured by the similar English Guild chartered in 1556, under the name of “Stationers’ Hall.” It would appear that the printing and publishing trade had never given the same hearty support to their organisation as had been given to the early printers of London. It is certain that the Guild was not well governed by its own officers, as from year to year we find in the records long declarations of abuses which had arisen.
Even the yearly election of officers fell into neglect, and it sometimes happened that the same officials remained in office, without the formality of re-election, for six or seven years running. It was only a very strong and thoroughly supported trade body that could have secured for itself the right to take an active part in coöperation with, or in antagonism to, the representatives of the Church on the one hand or of the State on the other, in framing the long series of regulations concerning copyright, literary property, press supervision, and typographical standards.
The Guild of Venice did not have the continued sturdiness and self-assertion requisite for maintaining such influence. Its principal attention was given to shaping new taxes and new hindrances upon the importation of books from abroad, and to attempts, often fruitless, to prevent the migration from Venice of the more enterprising members of its own body. A very much larger influence was exercised upon the Press legislation of its time by the associated printers and publishers of Frankfort and Leipzig, and by the well organised Printer-publishers of Paris. The interference of the Church in the German publishing centres was never very serious; while in Paris the supervision of the ecclesiastics was, from the outset, overshadowed by the controlling influence (often fussy and bothersome) of the Parliament of Paris.
In spite of feeble and ineffective management, however, the Guild of Venice accumulated property; and in 1638, it was rich enough to plan for the purchase of a Guild Hall, which was finally opened in 1642. The hall formed part of the cloisters attached to the Monastery of S. John and S. Paul, and was leased in perpetuity.
It was apparently in keeping with the general attitude of the Press of Italy towards the Church, that its first headquarters should have been under an ecclesiastical roof. The Guild of Venice was the only book-trade association in Europe the home of which was not entirely under secular control. Unfortunately for Venice, the lease of these convent premises had been made in perpetuity, and perpetual also was the obligation assumed with the premises to perform in them each year a specific number of masses. The expense account of the Guild increased from year to year, and this increasing outlay made requisite an increase in the membership list. The number of members who belonged during the first year of organisation appears to have been about eighty. The average membership during the succeeding years until 1732 was from three hundred to four hundred. In this year, the Guild took into its ranks, in addition to the master-printers and booksellers, master-binders.
In 1667, the Guild printed the examination paper prepared for those seeking matriculation as booksellers. This paper probably covered in substance the same range of subjects and the same standard of proficiency as had been in vogue for a number of years previous to its publication. The following are the principal questions for which answers were required:
Further, all candidates must be able to read and write Italian fluently, and must have a thorough knowledge of Latin and a working knowledge of French. Greek was not required, but was commended as a useful accomplishment. (In the retail shop attached to the office of Aldus, one or more salesmen had been required who could talk intelligently to Greek scholars about their editions of the Greek classics; but this was two hundred and thirty years earlier.) In addition to the above series of questions on scholarship, the examiners were instructed to make test of the candidates’ practical knowledge of the methods of booksellers’ business.
If these examinations were carried out with any degree of thoroughness, the booksellers of Venice must assuredly have been entitled to rank with the scholars of the world. We find no such high standards enforced in Paris, Leipzig, or in London, although in the two former publishing centres at least, the standard of scholarly attainment and of general knowledge of literature in the book-trade has always been high.
It is hardly necessary to remark that the application of any such severe test to the booksellers of to-day would empty the bookshops of nearly all of the trade centres of the world, leaving a dozen or more exceptions among the older traders in the University towns of North Germany.
The examinations for master-printers were also, if we may trust the records, both comprehensive and thorough. We have already seen, however, that notwithstanding examinations and regulations, the Guild had not succeeded in keeping Venetian printing of the seventeenth century up to the standard established by Aldus and his associates at the beginning of the sixteenth. In the year 1767, the Rifformatori turned their attention to the over-crowding and overproduction in the book-trade, declaring it to be their intention to regulate the supply through the demand. The first clause of the law of July 29th forbids the articling of new apprentices for the ensuing fifteen years. Sons and heirs are prohibited from entering the Guild during the lifetime of their fathers or those whom they will succeed. No one may open a shop or establish a press without first satisfying the magistracy that there is room or need for such shop or press. Booksellers or printers of the mainland who wish to enter the Guild in Venice, must close their mainland shop or press before they can be admitted. The copyright in new books, which, by the law of 1603, had been fixed at twenty years’ duration is now extended to thirty years, and for reissues it is extended from ten to thirteen years. Venetian printers must reach the market through Venetian book-sellers, and are forbidden to sell to foreign booksellers or to dealers in Venice not members of the Guild.
Notwithstanding all this elaborate provision, the influence of the Guild steadily declined, and the book-trade of Venice failed to regain its old-time prosperity. In 1780, the Rifformatori had before them for consideration the treatment to be accorded to the bankrupt members of the Guild. Insolvent members, while relieved from their Guild taxes, were excluded from all active share in its management. In 1782, the cashier of the Guild is empowered to advance money to poor members who need funds to develop their plant and to put their presses in order. In the same year, the Government fixed a standard of quality below which no paper used by the printer must fall, under penalty of confiscation of the edition in which the inferior paper was used.
The Guild survived the fall of the Republic in 1796, and in March, 1799, the Provisional Government undertook the direct control of the Press, re-affirming its ancient provisions and regulations in the matter of licensing books, of internal police, and of supervision. Brown says that it is not clear whether the Guild was suppressed or whether it died a natural death. The last document in the minute book is dated 1806, and after that date our knowledge ceases. It was in March, 1806, that Venice was formally annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, as organised by Napoleon. It is probable that any independence of action on the part of the organisation of Printers and Publishers was found incompatible with the Napoleonic system of the control of the Press.
In summing up the history of the operations of the book-trade of Venice, Brown remarks upon the constant lamentation on the part of the Government that the art of printing was decaying. He is inclined to doubt, however, whether such dread was well founded. Unquestionably it was the case that Venice no longer held a place of prominence for the finest class of printing, and there were no adequate successors to Jenson, John of Speyer, and Aldus Manutius, whose work would be accepted by the book-lovers of Europe as a model of typography. There was, however, a continued activity in printing as a trade, although there might be less interest in printing as an art, and the demand for cheap books, as well among Venetians as among the customers of Venice, had very largely increased between the beginning of the seventeenth and the end of the eighteenth century.
We find references from time to time to the rush of competitors to republish a book the copyright of which had expired. The long series of restrictions imposed by the ecclesiastics upon the printing of certain classes of books, are in themselves evidence of the extent of the dread felt by the Church concerning the influence to be exercised by these books upon the general public, and we must infer that the public demand for cheap books was steadily increasing, and that an effective book-selling and distributing machinery had been organised. The Church assuredly did all that was practicable to hamper the development of the new art, and succeeded, at least to the extent of transferring from Italy to Switzerland and to Germany the centre of literary production and of publishing activity.
It is to be noted that throughout the entire series of Venetian laws on copyright, there is no explicit statement that the property in a work belongs to its author. Such a conclusion is fairly to be inferred from the sense of many of the regulations, but it would appear that it had been arrived at rather by implication or had been accepted as something not necessary to define but in the nature of a truism or a self-evident fact. If this view of the purport of Venetian law be sound, it follows that, in Italy at least, literary property cannot be considered to have been the creation of law. It is safe here to use the term Italy, although the reference has been only to the law of Venice, for the reason that, as far as the regulation of literary property was concerned, Venetian legislation was much more comprehensive and specific than that of any other Italian State.
An act of the Venetian Senate passed on the 11th of March, 1780, presents sufficient evidence that the Government understood the ownership of a literary production to be vested in its author. This act declares il privilegio prima d’essere perpetuo per suo posseditore, l’era per l’autore dell’ opera, qualunque egli fosse, come si è sempre praticato. In September, 1781, the Rifformatori of the University of Padua, in the case of Pezzani, pronounced that il privilegio accordato alla stampa diventa dovuto premio all’ autore.
A phrase in the decree of the Rifformatori of 1780 might, if taken alone, be construed as constituting or conferring a perpetual copyright. This would, however, not be the practical working of the decree, as the requirement for a nuova licenza colle solite forme necessitated an application for renewal every five years, and unless the licence could be renewed, the ownership in the literary property as such would naturally lapse. In 1789, the question was more definitely settled by one of the laws framed under the Provisional Government (which succeeded the Republic), which re-enacted the provision of the Act of 1603, whereby all books whose privileges (or copyrights) had expired became public property.
A distinctive feature in all periods of the Press legislation of Venice, was the apparent inefficiency of the law, in spite of its constant interference and its many excellent provisions, to correct the abuses at which it aimed. The difficulty was partly due to the lack of adequate public opinion, and partly to the absence of any police machinery. It was also the case that the legislation was probably too paternal and unduly officious, so that the industry became checked by a multiplicity of laws relating to every conceivable phase of its existence. When, in addition to the legislation which was intended to further the business of printing and publishing, was added the complex series of ecclesiastical censorship restrictions, it is only surprising that any wholesome vitality for the book-trade was possible at all.
—In 1765, the Senate was again concerned with the old subject of the deterioration of the Venetian Press. A report was presented by the Rifformatori of the University from which it appears that the number of presses had fallen from seventy-seven in 1752 to fifty in 1765, and in which it was contended that the quality of the printing done had suffered as much as the quantity. In former years, said the report, the books called for by the Italian market were printed in Venice, and the booksellers in other cities devoted themselves principally to keeping depots for the sale of Venetian editions. Now, however, Leghorn, Lucca, Parma, Modena, and Bologna print their own books, and even refuse to accept Venetian editions in exchange, but demand payment in money. Venice no longer fills the place of mistress of the trade of book-production, but has become simply a retailer.
The Rifformatori concluded that the evil was partly due to the lack of a sufficiently high standard of workmanship among the printers, but that its chief cause was the lack of desirable new literature with which to keep the presses occupied. The demand for reissues of the classics had been in great part supplied, while the production of original works had been seriously hampered and discouraged by the continuous interference of the Church and the serious obstacles and burdens imposed through the Indexes, the Rules, and the cumbersome machinery of the ecclesiastical censorship.
The Rifformatori recommended, among other measures, that the Concordat and the Index of 1595 should again be published, if only to prove that all works subsequently placed upon the Index without the consent of the Government were not prohibited in Venice but could be freely printed, bought, and sold; that the name of Venice should be printed on the title-pages of all Venetian productions; that printers and publishers should be forbidden to seek the testamur of the Inquisitor for the reissue in Venice of books first printed abroad, but that these works should be licensed directly by the Government after an examination of them by certain faithful and learned persons. It was evidently the object of the Rifformatori to secure for the Venetian Press the large business of supplying the markets of Italy with editions of works by foreign authors, the literary activity of Italy being at that time evidently insufficient to keep the printers occupied.
The recommendation of the Rifformatori that the censorship privilege heretofore exercised by the ecclesiastical Inquisitor should be brought to an end was certain, if adopted, to bring the Republic into renewed conflict with the Church.
This recommendation, however, together with all the others in the report, were passed upon with approval by the local advisers of the Senate. In August, 1765, the Senate issued a decree instructing the Rifformatori to publish and to circulate the Index of Clement and the Concordat, and also providing that the Rifformatori should appoint an ecclesiastic, a subject of Venice, as an equal associate with the Inquisitor, whose testamur as to matters of faith and doctrine should have equal weight with that of the Inquisitor. The publication of this decree caused no little excitement in Rome,—and a decree was at once issued by the Papal Court prohibiting the sale or circulation of all books licensed by the newly-appointed Venetian officers. Any such books found on the frontier of the Papal States were to be seized and consigned to that part of the convent libraries known as the “prison and hell of heretics.” In July, 1766, the Papal Nuncio made a formal protest to the Government of the Republic and demanded the withdrawal of the decree of 1765.
The issue between the Republic and the Papacy was not whether heretical publications should be repressed, for Venice declared itself as much opposed as Rome to books destructive of sound doctrine. The contest turned upon the selection of the authority that should decide what was heretical or dangerous. The Republic had from the outset claimed that all authority for censorship and for licensing must proceed from the Church, and while it was prepared to make use of ecclesiastical censors, these must be appointed by the civil government. The present decree expressed, it was contended, merely a reaffirming of the original policy. The Papacy, on the other hand, maintained that the authority of the Holy Writ, of the Fathers, and of the Councils proved that the duty of keeping the flock from poisonous food was entrusted to the Church.
The Senate referred the demand of the Papacy to Pietro Francheschi for counsel, and he prepared a report in which the case of the State was forcibly stated. The position of Venice had, it was contended, not changed at all from the time when, with the introduction of printing, some system of Press supervision had been found to be necessary. She still claims to be the faithful child of the Church, while maintaining her right also to be Principe libero in casa sua.
The issue had thus been fairly presented on the part of the two parties but no conclusion was reached, and it is probable that with such different points of view, and with a lack of accord even upon such primary terms as “dogma,” “heresy,” and “orthodoxy,” no agreement that was both logical and equitable could have been reached, even if more time had been available for the discussion. The decree of August, 1765, was never withdrawn, and the place of Inquisitor as censor of books upon matters of faith was taken by persons appointed by the Rifformatori of the University. In the year 1794, the Commissioners of Heresy (Savii sopra l’Eresia) requested an opinion from these University censors upon the Institutiones Theologicæ of De Montazet, Archbishop of Lyons, which had been censured at Rome in 1792. As a result of their report, the Government refused to sanction the decree of the Congregation of the Index.
Such an instance can be accepted as evidence that the Press of Venice had at last secured freedom from the censorship of Rome. The revolutionary spirit which was agitating all Europe, and which in France had for the time completely overthrown both Church and monarchy, must have seriously weakened the control of the Papacy over the Italian States, and doubtless exercised no little influence in this final contest between the ecclesiastical censorship and the printing-press.
Venice did not long enjoy this freedom. In 1797, the Republic fell, and with the establishment of French rule, the history of Venetian legislation concerning literary property comes to an end.
This record of the Venetian Printing-Press, including its relations with the Government, the Church, and the public, covers, as we have seen, a period of about three centuries, from 1490 to 1797. It is, as said, based upon, and in part abstracted from, the erudite and comprehensive history of Brown. I have thought best to confine the narrative to Venice on several grounds. Venice was the first city in Italy, and practically the first in Europe, in which the printing and publishing business became of importance. For the first century of the period above referred to, it was the chief publishing centre of the world. In Venice, came together skilled printers from Germany and learned scholars from the ruins of the Eastern Empire, and the development of the Venetian Press was encouraged and in part made possible by the support of certain cultivated members of the Italian nobility, a nobility which, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, probably possessed a greater measure of intellectual refinement and scholarly taste than could be shown at the time by the noble classes of any other country of Europe.
The comparatively secluded position of Venice preserved it from many of the interruptions of foreign invasions and interstate strifes to which nearly all the other cities of Italy were subject. All classes of business were of necessity seriously interfered with, and often for the time entirely destroyed by the desolating influence of war in the form either of defensive campaigns against Germany, France, or Spain, or of the many little contests of the cities with each other; while for literary activity and for the production and distribution of books, conditions of warfare were nearly fatal. It is surprising that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it should have proved possible to have carried on as much book business as was done in such cities as Lucca, Florence, and Pisa.
During these centuries, however, Venice, protected by her lagoons, never felt the foot of an invader, and while her trade through Italy had to take its share of the interruptions caused by the many wars, her traffic by sea was rarely interfered with. It was doubtless in part also this position of independence which enabled Venice to withstand the encroachments of the Papacy, and alone among Italian cities to preserve in its own hands even a partial control of its Press. This Press was, of course, very far from being free, the censorship on the part of the State, and the ecclesiastical censorship exercised either by authority of or in spite of the authority of the State, being often severe, and always cumbersome, irritating, and expensive, and interfering enormously with the value of literary production as property. The Venetian Press possessed, however, a far greater measure of freedom than had been secured by the printer-publishers of any other Italian city, and this was probably the chief cause of its long-continued preëminence.
The general course of the legislation in Venice for the supervision of the Press and for the encouragement and protection of literary workers and of publishers, was similar in character to that of the other Italian cities in which attention was given to printing. The literary legislation of Venice was, however, more comprehensive in its character and more consistent in its purposes than that of other Italian States, while the records of it are also among the most complete, and, thanks to the scholarly diligence of Mr. Brown, are now accessible to the unscholarly reader.
This abstract of the history of the Venetian Printing-Press has, therefore, been given as presenting a sketch of the history of literary property in Italy for the three centuries covering the period from the introduction of printing to the destruction of the Venetian Republic.
The enactments in Italy relating to literary property are not again of any very distinctive importance until after the establishing, in 1859, of the Italian Kingdom.