Manuscript Culture in Renaissance Italy

Even after the arrival of printing in the fifteenth century, texts continued to be circulated within Italian society by means of manuscript. Scribal culture offered rapidity, flexibility and a sense of private, privileged communication. This book is a detailed treatment of the continuing use of scribal transmission in Renaissance Italy. Brian Richardson explores the uses of scribal culture within specific literary genres, its methods and its audiences. He also places it within the wider system of textual communication and of self-presentation, examining the relationships between manuscript and print and between manuscript and the spoken or sung performance of verse. An important contribution to a lively area of the history of the book, this study will be of interest both for the abundance of new material on the circulation of texts in Italy and as a model for how to study the cultures of manuscript and print in early modern Europe.

Preface; 1. The contexts and characteristics of manuscript circulation; 2. Handwriting and the work of copyists; 3. The manuscript circulation of lyric and burlesque poetry; 4. The manuscript circulation of prose; 5. Authors and their readers: dedications and other paratexts; 6. Orality, manuscript and the circulation of verse; Conclusion; Index of manuscripts; Bibliography; General index.

Brian Richardson is Professor of Italian Language at the University of Leeds.