MARTYR d’Anghiera caused some consternation to the
Spanish authorities with the extent and accuracy of his
disclosures about Spain’s exploration of the New World in
his Decades de orbe novo (1511–30). Fear on the part of
English merchants involved in the Baltic trade that the
Russians would take offense at Giles FLETCHERthe Elder’s
observations in The Russe Commonwealth (1591) led to
them to persuade Elizabeth I’s chief minister, Lord Burgh-
ley, to suppress the book. However, by far the largest area
of concern for the censors was writings suspected of pos-
ing a threat to religious orthodoxy, public order, or private
morality—or often all three together.
The writings of the religious reformers were an obvi-
ous target for censorship (see COUNTER-REFORMATION).
The Milanese senate issued an index of banned books in
1538 and other Italian cities soon followed suit. The INDEX
LIBRORUM PROHIBITORUMissued in 1557 and 1559 under
Pope PAUL IVwas the forerunner of all subsequent lists of
publications forbidden to Roman Catholics by reason ei-
ther of heterodoxy or immorality. It became usual for
printers to cite on their title-pages their authority to print,
a practice ridiculed by John Milton in his great attack on
licensing for the press, Areopagitica (1644): “Sometimes 5
Imprimaturs are seen together dialoguewise in the Piatza
of one Title page, complementing and ducking each to
other with their shav’n reverences...” Secular works also
suffered the attentions of censor and expurgator; for in-
stance, the writings of ARETINOand MACHIAVELLIwere
banned, Cinthio Fabrizi’s collection of obscene proverbs,
Libro della origine delli volgari proverbi (1526) provoked
the initiation of censorship in Venice in 1527, and Boc-
caccio’s DECAMERONsuffered the indignity of expurgated
editions in 1573 and 1582.
In England licensing for the press by the privy coun-
cil was introduced in 1538. From 1557 the Stationers’
Company was held responsible for the regulation of the
book trade, and later decrees nominated various digni-
taries as licensers. In 1586 the number of presses allowed
per printer was strictly curtailed and their whereabouts
limited to London, apart from one press each for the uni-
versity cities of Oxford and Cambridge; unauthorized
presses, such as those used to print the pamphlets in the
MARPRELATE CONTROVERSYwere rigorously pursued, and if
found were destroyed. Furthermore, authors were liable to
penalties of imprisonment, mutilation, or death for pro-
ducing obnoxious material, and books themselves could
be seized and burnt, as befell the satirical works of
Thomas NASHEand Gabriel HARVEYunder an edict of
1599.
As the Counter-Reformation advanced in Europe,
censorship of the visual arts was also attempted. The most
notorious incidence of this is probably the employment of
a number of artists, among them El Greco, to paint
draperies over the naked figures in Michelangelo’s Last
Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. A similar trend was mani-
fested in music when Philip II of Spain insisted that plain-
song only was to be used for the religious services in the
Escorial, as the polyphonic church music hitherto popular
in Spain had secular tunes worked into it.Centuriators of Magdeburg The collective name for
the authors of Historia ecclesiae Christi, a history of the
Church century by century until 1400, published at Basle
from 1559 to 1574. Among the Centuriators were
Matthias Flacius (Vlacic), Nicolaus von Amsdorf, Johann
Wigand, Nicolaus Gallus (Hahn), and Matthäus Judex
(Richter). The work was begun about 1550 at Magdeburg
and continued from 1562 at Regensburg (Ratisbon). It is
broad in conception, but often inaccurate in detail, and
was cogently attacked by the Catholic historian BARONIUS.ceramics The technique of producing objects made of
fired clay, which in the European Middle Ages and Re-
naissance could range from the purely practical (e.g. roof
tiles) through decorative floor tiles and vessels to high art
(e.g. the enameled terracotta sculptures of Luca DELLA
ROBBIA). At the merely functional level, pottery was prac-
ticed wherever suitable clay could be found not too far
from a source of water and sufficient wood for fuel; local
production had the advantage of minimizing the expense
and hazards of transporting the heavy but fragile finished
products. For major building projects, such as palaces or
monasteries, kilns would be set up on site to make the
necessary tiles. Stamps were used to make the patterns on
two-color floor tiles, with a (usually) white slip poured
into the impressed areas of the design before firing.
The major Renaissance development in the field of
decorative ceramics was the type of tin-glazed pottery
known as MAJOLICA. In the 15th century Valencia was a
major exporter of majolica wares. Elaborately decorated
and colorful Italian majolica was exported all over Europe
from such centers as the Montelupo potteries in Tuscany
or Faenza, near Bologna. (“Faience,” the generic name by
which such tin-glazed wares were known in most of
northern Europe, derives from the latter.) The technique
was imported into England in 1567 by potters from
Antwerp. An indigenous German type of pottery was salt-
glazed stoneware (German: Steinzeug), manufactured in
the Rhineland from the 12th century onward; clay and a
fusible stone were fired at a high enough temperature to
vitrify the stone to make nonporous vessels.
Further reading: Timothy Wilson, Ceramic Art of the
Italian Renaissance (London: British Museum, 1987).Cereta, Laura (1469–1499) Italian humanist, feminist,
and scholar
From an aristocratic family in Brescia, she was educated at
home by her father, who encouraged her interest in math-
ematics and taught her Latin and Greek. She also engaged
in self-education, taking up astronomy, philosophy, theol-9988 CCeennttuurriiaattoorrss ooff MMaaggddeebbuurrgg