the venetian intellectual world 593
aimed to publish all the latin and Greek classical texts—and so he did,
making available in clear, portable editions the whole tradition of classical
antiquity on which the renaissance intellectual project rested. The print-
ing of Greek texts, in particular, lured Greek scholars to Venice, as well
as the northerner desiderius erasmus, who stayed with aldo to guide his
own Adages through the press.
after aldo’s death, his son took over the business. By that time, more
than 60 other printing houses—the big names of Giunta, Scoto, and
Giolito joining that of Manuzio—had established themselves in the city,
which remained throughout the 16th and 17th centuries a center for the
production and circulation of books. Marino Zorzi estimates that between
15,000 and 30,000 editions were printed in Venice during the 16th century,
when about 15 per cent of the population possessed book, a proportion
rising to about 23 per cent of the patriciate and 64 per cent of ecclesiastics.66
The peak of printing activity was reached around 1550;67 a steep decline
followed after 1650, though even in the Seicento, Venice was “the city of
books and booksellers.”68
Personal libraries grew in size and substance as printed volumes joined
older manuscripts, the largest rising to some 800 volumes including clas-
sics, history, devotional works, philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, cos-
mography and travel accounts.69 The library collected by the 15th-century
statesman and humanist Bernardo Bembo, which passed to his literary
son and future cardinal Pietro, contained 50 or so volumes that aldo
consulted in his publishing endeavors.70 The collection, subsequently
66 Marino Zorzi, “la circolazione del libro a Venezia nel cinquecento: biblioteche private
e pubbliche,” Archivio veneto 177 (1990), 117–89; and more briefly, Zorzi, “la circolazione
del libro: biblioteche private e pubbliche,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 6: Dal Rinascimento al
Barocco, ed. cozzi and Prodi, pp. 589–614.
67 claudia di Filippo Bareggi, “l’editoria veneziana fra ’500 e ’600,” in Storia di Venezia,
vol. 6: Dal Rinascimento al Barocco, ed. cozzi and Prodi, pp. 615–50.
68 Marino Zorzi, “la produzione e la circolazione del libro,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 7:
La Venezia barocca, ed. Benzoni and cozzi, pp. 968–69.
69 Marino Zorzi, “le biblioteche veneziane, espressione di una singolare civiltà,” in lisa
Pon and craig Kallendorf, eds., The Books of Venice / Il Libro Veneziano (new castle, del.,
2009), pp. 1–30, offers an overview from early medieval times to the end of the republic;
also Zorzi “la circolazione del libro”; Zorzi, La libreria di San Marco; Marino Zorzi, “dal
manoscritto al libro,” in Storia di Venezia, vol. 4: Il Rinascimento. Politica e cultura, ed.
Tenenti and Tucci, pp. 817–958; and Zorzi, “la produzione a la circolazione del libro.”
70 For the Bembo collection, see Massimo danzi, La biblioteca del Cardinal Pietro Bembo
(Geneva, 2005); also Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo, pp. 259–358.