The Crisis of Print

The first age of the printed book was undoubtedly a period of excitement and bold experimentation. But not everyone was convinced that the new invention represented a great leap forward for the book culture of Renaissance. True, desired texts were now easier to obtain. But was such profusion necessarily to be welcomed? Was it possible that the flood of new writing had actually damaged the cause of pure letters? The case against books was made most eloquently by a dyspeptic Benedictine, Filippo de Stratra, a member of the community of S. Cipriano in Murano. De Strata,, like many early critics of of the press, earned his livelihood as a scribe, copying mostly devotional works and occasional verse. But he was also a well-traveled man, a well-respected preacher, and he could ely on a hearing in high places. His diatribe against printing was addressed to the Doge of Venice. De Strata chose his moment well. His proposal, that printers be banned from the republic, was made just as the industry seemed to danger of collapse in 1473.

De Strat’s complaints were partly conventional. The flood of cheap books, he argued, was corrupting morals. The printers themselves were uncultured men. The refined scribe recoiled from the thought of his beloved books now being produced by ink-stained artisans, rootless servants and drunken foreigners. The only good thing that could be said for print was that these guzzling workmen had at least increased the income from wine tax. But De Strata also articulated fears that stuck a chord with many of the elites that had thus far sustained the new technology: that a flood of cheap books encouraged the wrong sorts of reader. ~ Page 43 (The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree)