The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 2 (of 2)Putnam, George Haven
History
The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 2 (of 2)
Putnam, George Haven
Freedom of the press; Liberty of conscience; Prohibited books
=3. Italy.=--The introduction of the printing-press into Italy was
brought about under the initiative of Juan Turrecremata, who was Abbot
of Subiaco, and who later became Cardinal. The Cardinal was a Spaniard
by birth and his family name (in the Spanish form Torquemada) was,
later, associated with some of the most strenuous of the persecutions
which the Inquisition brought to bear upon the printers. The great
Spanish inquisitor was a nephew of the Cardinal. The Cardinal had been
one of the confessors of Queen Isabella and is said to have made to her
the first suggestion of the necessity of establishing the Inquisition
in order to check the rising spirit of heresy. He did not realise what
a Trojan horse, full of heretical possibilities, he was introducing
into Italy in bringing in the Germans and their printing-press.
Turrecremata was a man of scholarly interests, and he felt assured
that the new art could be made of large service to the Church. He
provided funds for the establishment in Subiaco, in 1464, of the first
printing-press in Italy, which was placed in charge of the Germans
Schweinheim and Pannartz who had learned their art directly from
Gutenberg. The two Germans later migrated to Rome and within a few
years there was a large invasion of German printers into the capital.
The first books printed in Subiaco under the instructions of the
Cardinal were a _Donatus_, an edition of Lactantius, and an edition of
the _De Oratore_ of Cicero. Until towards the close of the century,
when the Church authorities began to realise the risks that were to
be incurred by the Church through the popular distribution of printed
literature, the German printers found opportunities in Italy for
successful and remunerative business.
[Sidenote: Venice]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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