The invention of printing (c.1450) revolu tionized the methods of bookselling, but the revolution extended over a period of nearly half a century. For years after the first printers began their work in Germany. in France, and in Italy, the production of manuscripts went on and even as late as the beginning of the Fifteenth Century certain of the noble book collectors in Italy took the ground that the printed book was for the use of the vulgar reader only, and that the libraries of gentlemen must be devoted ex clusively to the manuscript form of literature. Gutenberg's first partner, Fust, and his asso ciate, SchlitTer, were the first printers who acted also as publishers and booksellers. Notwith standing the many difficulties with which they had to eontend, they were able to offer their hooks at prices which to the old dealers in manuscripts seemed so astounding as to give sonic pretext for the charge of magic. :Madden says that a copy of the 'forty-eight line Bible,' printed on parchment, could be bought in Paris in 1470 for 2000 francs, while the cost of the same text a few years earlier in the manuscript form would have been five times as great. (Me of the earlier of the important publishing cen tres of Europe was Basel. Its most famous name for our purpose is that of Froben, in later years the publisher and friend of Erasmus. The publisher whose work was, between 1475 and 1512, the most important in Germany was Ko burger of Nuremberg, who by the year 1300 was utilizing no Iess than twenty•four presses, and sending out annually more books than any other publisher of his time. Ile had branches or agencies in Frankfort, Pari A, and Lyons, and business correspondence in the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Hungary, and Poland, as well as throughout Germany. In respect to the bulk of the business done by him and of the commer cial success secured, he was a greater publisher than either Aldus or Froben, his two most fa mous contemporaries. The greatest publisher of this period, however, taking into account not simply the eommercial returns of his business, but Ids influence upon the literature and, one may say, upon the civilization of his time. was Aldus Manntius of Venice. it was to the high scholarly ideals and courageous and unselfish labors of Aldus and his immediate succes sors, no less than to the imagination, ingenu ity, and persistency of Gutenberg and Fust, that the Europe of 1495 was indebted for the great gift of the poetry and of the philosophy of Greece. Mainz and Venice joined hands to place at the service of the scholarly world the literary heritage of Athens. The work of Aldus as a printer-publisher (his earlier years had been devoted to teaching) began in the noteworthy year 1492. His first publication was the Greek and Latin grammar of Lascaris. This was followed shortly by the works of Ar istotle, a Greek grammar. and a Greek-Latin dictionary. From 1480 to 1509. when the Re public came to be harassed by the war inaugu rated by the League of Cambrai, Venice was the most active literature-producing centre in Europe. In the organization of his printing and publishing business, Aldus had special ob stacles to overcome. A large proportion of his undertakings were issued in Greek; and while he could secure the service of Greek editors, his compositors were of necessity Italians. Ile was obliged, after supervising the founding of the type, to watch typesetting and proof-reading. To the text his contributions as an editor were often important. When the book was printed, the copies had to be disposed of by personal cor respondence with scholars throughout Europe, to whom the knowledge that Greek classics were obtainable in printed form came but slowly, and with whom grew still more slowly the interest in such classics and the knowledge needed for their study. The delivery of books from Venice to different points of the Continent, particularly during the years of war (and these years were the most numerous), and the securing of the re mittances in payment. was by no means an easy matter. It is not surprising that Aldus died poor, or that he writes plaintively in that "for seven years books had had to contend against arms." His most famous editorial as sociate was Erasmus, for whom also he pub lished the first editions of the famous Colloquies and Praise of Folly. A serious difficulty with which the books of Aldus had to contend was the competition of the piratical copies of his editions which promptly appeared in Cologne, in Ttibingen, in Lyons, and even so close at home as Florence.
In I559 the guild of the printers, publishers, and booksellers of Milan was organized. The Stationers' Company in England had secured its charter from Queen Mary in 1556, 33 years earlier. Like most of these trade guilds. its object was to restrict the trade to a certain privileged class. the professed aim being "the removal of great and detestable heresies." and the charter ordering "that no man should exer cise the mystery of printing, except he was of the stationers' company, or had a license."
The guild of the Venetian printers dated from 154S, and was the earliest association of the kind in Europe. The guild of Milan was, how ever, in certain ways the most important of these earlier organizations. It gave an impor tant incentive to printing and to publishing: it secured a high standard for the quality of the work done, and its regulations tended to keep the business in the hands of a good class of men. The guild of printers and publishers in Paris was a direct development of the earlier guild of manuscript dealers, and, as has been stated, constituted a division of the university. The regulations which had controlled the work of the manuscript dealers, and the supervision and censorship of this work, were continued in France for the productions of the Paris printing presses. The first publishing office in Paris was founded in 1469, at the request of two of the in structors of the Sorbonne, by Gerring, Krantz, and Friberger, from Constance, at that time an imperial city of Germany. The work of these bookmakers was carried on in one of the halls of the Sorbonne. Printed books bad. however, been sold in Paris 7 years earlier. It was in 1462 that Fust brought from Mainz a supply of his folio Bible, copies of which he was able to sell for 50 crowns, while the usual price for manuscript work of this compass had been from 400 to 600 crowns. By the close of the century there were in Paris over fifty printing con cerns. After Paris, Lyons was the city of France in which the production of printed books se cured the earliest introduction and the most rapid development. The printer-publishers of Lyons showed themselves enterprising in more ways than one. They were free from the im mediate supervision and control of the authori ties of the University of Paris, and. as the his tory of the Paris press shows, the difficulties placed in the way of publishing undertakings by the bigoted and ignorant censorship of the theologians must have more than offset the ad vantages usually to be secured in the produc tion of scholarly publications through the fa cilities of the university and the editorial ser vice rendered by its members. Paris was, how ever, fortunate in having among its earlier pub lishers a number of men whose interest in lit erature was that of scholars as well as of mer chants. Gourmont (who established, in 1507, the first Greek press in Paris) and Badins As eenSills had produeed before 1530 a long series of important classical works. The printer-pub lishers whose undertakings were, however, of the largest importanee for the world of scholar ship were the Estiennes or Stephaui. They tributed no less than four generations to the publishing business. The work of the Stephani was carried on under difficulties— commercial, literary, theological, and political. Their books were, with a few exceptions, edited and supervised by the publishers themselves. No publisher except Aldus has ever contributed to the issues of his press as much original schol arly work as is to be found in the books hearing the imprint of Robert Stephanus. Willem Jans zoon Blaeu (q.v.) (1571-163S), his sons and grandsons, also deserve honorable mention among the Netherland publishers.
The name of William Caxton holds an honor able place in the early publishing undertakings, not only of England, but of Europe. The list of the books issued from his press was not very great, and the books themselves were much less important for scholarship or for permanent literature than the first publications of certain of the printer-publishers of the Continent. The fact, however, that through Caxton printing was introduced into England. and that he was the means of first utilizing for English readers the publishing. training, and scholarly interests which had been developed for him in the Low Countries, gave his work a distinctive impor tance. Caxton's first printing-press was set up in Bruges, and his first seven publications were there issued. The earliest volume printed in Europe in the French language was Caxton's edition of the Burgundian romance Le Beeueil des histoires dc Troyr. It was in 1476 that Caxton migrated to Westminster. His list of publications there was largely devoted to ro mances more or less similar in character to the book first issued from his press in Bruges. The demand at that time in England, as indicated by the lists of Caxton and of his immediate suc cessors, for the classical and theological works which constituted so important a portion of the earlier publications of Venice, Paris. Mainz, and Cologne must have been much less considerable than abroad. The period of the beginning of Caxton's publishing business in London was one of political excitement and of civil war, and the times were not favorable for the selling of literature.