666 mario infelise
only in recent times have scholars abandoned such ideological visions
and been able, finally, to contextualize the themes of censorship and lib-
erty within the greater political and religious questions of the early modern
period in a comparative analysis that has brought together developments
in Venice with those in the other european states.
attention to jurisdictional aspects has been the point of departure for
many studies on censorship in the early modern period, aiming to define
the responsibilities of the institutions charged with these sorts of control.
there has been a return to the old debates of whether it was the Church
with its hierarchical structure that should decide which books might be
read, or if the state could have the right to evade such supervision, all the
while keeping in mind that the political and ecclesiastical powers were
not systematically antagonistic. indeed, early modern governments were
long sustained by the deep conviction that the spread of heresy threat-
ened secular authority as well.
in comparison to the other italian states, more sensitive to papal pres-
sures and with much weaker publishing industries, Venice was largely
able to maintain greater autonomy and limit the interference of the holy
see. it was also the only italian state which paid constant attention to
the problems of censorship, as the modern scholar can follow in great
detail thanks to the abundant archival sources that began to appear with
the introduction of the first printing houses and continued for more than
three centuries.
Before 1527 there was no organized system of control, apart from a few
sporadic attempts by the Church to intervene with regard to doctrinal
and religious books. if the spread of luther’s theses starting in 1517 began
to arouse concern, in 1518 Bernardino stagnino had no problem printing
his Appelatio ad Concilium, and in 1520 the Wittenberg reformer’s three
principal treatises were sold openly. luther’s excommunication in 1521
changed everything, even though until the mid-16th century the system
of control was far from perfect, given the problems of enforcement in a
city with a flourishing book industry and the constant presence of men
of all religious faiths. in 1527 the government introduced restrictions for
all books printed in Venice, as well as for imports. the holy office was
re-established in 1543, and in 1548 the republic formally accepted the
authority of the inquisition in its dominions, though under the control
passato. storie miti ‘fole,’ ” in m. isnenghi and s. Woolf, eds., Storia di Venezia. L’Ottocento
e il Novecento (rome, 2002), pp. 967–88.