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Title: Printing and the Renaissance
A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York

Author: John Rothwell Slater

Release Date: July 11, 2008 [EBook #26029]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PRINTING AND THE RENAISSANCE

[Illustration]

PRINTING AND THE RENAISSANCE: A PAPER READ BEFORE THE FORTNIGHTLY CLUB
OF ROCHESTER NEW YORK BY JOHN ROTHWELL SLATER.

[Illustration]

NEW YORK
William Edwin Rudge
1921

PRINTING AND THE RENAISSANCE:
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE
FORTNIGHTLY CLUB OF
ROCHESTER
N. Y.

PRINTING did not make the Renaissance; the Renaissance made printing.
Printing did not begin the publication and dissemination of books. There
were libraries of vast extent in ancient Babylon, Egypt, Greece, Rome.
There were universities centuries before Gutenberg where the few
instructed the many in the learning treasured up in books, and where
both scholars and professional scribes multiplied copies of books both
old and new. At the outset of any examination of the influence of
printing on the Renaissance it is necessary to remind ourselves that the
intellectual life of the ancient and the mediaeval world was built upon
the written word. There is a naive view in which ancient literature is
conceived as existing chiefly in the autograph manuscripts and original
documents of a few great centers to which all ambitious students must
have resort. A very little inquiry into the multiplication of books
before printing shows us how erroneous is this view.

We must pass over entirely the history of publishing and book-selling in
ancient times, a subject too vast for adequate summary in a preliminary