Page 64 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

by the frequent editorial corrections, the inky fingerprints, and the scored marks in the margins to indicate the end of the text page. The texts of the printed pages correspond almost exactly to these markings.”31
From the beginning of printing publication of books was risky, as it was expensive to produce the inventory of copies necessary for sale, and sales could be difficult to predict with accuracy. These risks, which remain with publishers today, were particularly great at the beginning of the industry. It is understood from legal documents that in 1455, the year of publication of the 42-line Bible, merchant and money-lender Johann Fust filed a lawsuit against Gutenberg resulting in Gutenberg losing his printing equipment to Fust. Ironically, because of the paucity of documentation concerning the origins of printing in Europe, the legal document which survived concern- ing this lawsuit, known as the Helmasperger Notarial Instrument, is one of the only documents directly associating Gutenberg with the invention of printing by movable type. Fust’s repossession of Gutenberg’s equipment be- came the basis for the Fust and Schoeffer partnership, resulting, presumably because of Schoeffer’s excellent taste and skill, in some of the finest products of the early press.
To mitigate risk some early printers sought to obtain a monopoly for printing in a certain region before going to the expense of establishing a business. In 1469 the Venetian state granted a five-year monopoly to the German printer Johannes de Spira (Speyer). This was the first monopoly on printing granted by a European government, and by encouraging the very early development of the printing industry, it set the stage for Venice to become one of the leading publishing centers of Europe by the 1480s. Other printers may have sought sponsors or patrons to underwrite costs of editions, or they entered into cost sharing arrangements with other print- ers.32 By the sixteenth century it was common for a wealthy author or patron to pay for the printing of an edition. In the early years of printing, however, most titles published were standard textbooks, religious treatises or editions
31 Wilson, The Making of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1976), p. 34.
32 Richardson, Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy (1999), pp. 25-35.
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