Page 66 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

of the classics, the ancient authors of which would not have been available to underwrite costs. On the other hand, the church appreciated the value of printing for education and spreading the faith from the earliest years of printing and was in a position to support printers. The introduction of printing in Subiaco and Rome by Konrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pan- nartz, both of whom were clerics, appears to have been arranged by highly placed persons in the entourage of Pope Paul II. It is also understood that the church supported the establishment of printing shops in other cities and towns in Italy.33 By the end of the year 1500, only forty-five years after the invention of printing by movable type, printing presses were established in 282 cities, nearly all of which were in Europe. From this period 29,777 different editions survive, suggesting a considerably larger original output. Assuming that the average edition was between 150 and 500 copies, some- where around 15–20 million printed books would have been produced. It is difficult to think of any other technological development in history which had spread this far, this fast, up to this time, or which had more influence upon the development of society.
Even if early editions were as small as 150 to 300 copies, and the manu- facturing costs of the new technology were initially high, mass production would have resulted in books less expensive than manuscript copies made to order one at a time. Because there were so many different manuscripts, and so many different printed books, it is difficult to arrive at any gener- alization concerning prices except to acknowledge that the cost of pro- fessionally produced manuscripts was high, and ownership of any kind of luxury manuscript was limited to the wealthy and powerful. In Italy, where the supply of manuscripts was greatest in the fifteenth century, it was esti- mated that “a typical vellum manuscript of the fifteenth century, in finished form and bound, cost between seven and ten ducats; this equaled a month’s wages for an official at the Neapolitan court.”34 Naturally there were less expensive manuscripts of many kinds, including those written by amateur
33 Hirsch, Printing, Selling and Reading 1450-1550 (1967), p. 106.
34 Buehler, The Fifteenth Century Book: The Scribes, The Printers, The Decorators (1960), p. 19.
66