654 mario infelise
his contribution to the affirmation and spread of the printed book
remained decisive.
even with aldo’s death in 1515, the Venetian book industry did not lose
its earlier dynamism. an estimate based on the italian editions possessed
by the British library calculates that 74 per cent of the books published
in italy between 1526 and 1550 were printed in Venice.8 this period wit-
nessed both the creation of new publishing houses and the continued
development of existing ones, characterized by an extraordinary vitality
despite the different fields in which individual publishers worked. they
experimented with new techniques, invented new products, perfected
commercial and production systems, and thus contributed to the rein-
forcement of Venice as a great publishing center. the giunti constructed
a truly international operation centered in Venice, but with multiple
economic interests in europe and along the entire mediterranean basin;
alessandro Paganino tested new formats and used arabic letters to print a
koran with which he hoped to penetrate the ottoman and middle-eastern
markets;9 marcolini and giolito focused predominantly on vernacular
literature;10 ottaviano Petrucci invented a method for printing polyphonic
music; and the frenchman antonio gardano, after having perfected that
method, moved to Venice to start a printing house specialized in musical
editions.11 still others tried their hand at printing maps and atlases and in
the reproduction of images.12 the list is lengthy indeed.
8 marino Zorzi, “dal manoscritto al libro,” in gino Benzoni and antonio menniti
ippolito, Storia di Venezia. Dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, 14 vols (rome, 1992–
2002), vol. 4 (1996): Il Rinascimento. Politica e cultura, ed. alberto tenenti and ugo tucci,
pp. 817–958. on 16th-century production data, however, see harris, “ombre della storia del
libro italiano,” pp. 472–85.
9 angela nuovo, Alessandro Paganino (1509–1538) (Padua, 1990). see also giorgio
Vercellin, Venezia e l’origine della stampa in caratteri arabi (Padua, 2001).
10 see also the works of amedeo Quondam, “mercanzia d’onore/mercanzia d’utile.
Produzione libraria e lavoro intellettuale a Venezia nel Cinquecento,” in a. Petrucci, Libri,
editori e pubblico nell’Europa moderna (rome/Bari, 1977), pp. 51–104; and “nel giardino
del marcolini. un editore veneziano tra aretino e doni,” Giornale storico della letteratura
italiana 157 (1980), 75–116.
11 on musical editions, see iain fenlon, Music, Print and Culture in Early Sixteenth-
Century Italy (london, 1995). on gardano, see elisa Bonaldi, “la famiglia gardano e
l’editoria musicale veneziana (1538–1611),” Studi veneziani n.s. 20 (1990), 272–302; and mary
s. lewis, Antonio Gardano, Venetian Music Printer, 1538–1569: A Descriptive Bibliography
and Historical Study, 3 vols (new York, 1988, 1997, 2005).
12 david Woodward, Maps and Prints in the Italian Renaissance: makers, distributors,
and Consumers (london, 1996).