Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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PART 1
THE INTELLECTUAL CONTEXT
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Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
I
THE CONDITIONS OF ENQUIRY
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Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
I
Manuscripts proved to be an
effective
vehicle for the expression and
dissemination of ideas throughout the later Middle
Ages
and the Renais-
sance.
Even though the invention and advance of printing narrowed
their
scope,
printing never rendered manuscripts completely irrelevant. Numer-
ous treatises either did not require to be or could not be
printed
or were
published only long after
their
composition. Such texts had to be read in
manuscript. Philosophical manuscripts in particular retained
their
value,
both for the continuation of traditional philosophical schools and proce-
dures and for the exposition and communication of new ideas. The
manuscript culture which had developed in the Middle
Ages
continued to
serve
a variety of readers throughout the sixteenth century.
A
comprehensive history of the role played by manuscripts in Renais-
sance thought is yet to be written. Renaissance philosophical manuscripts as
a topic
of
scholarly
investigation have been ignored for a variety
of
reasons.
On
the one
hand,
they have fallen victim to the medievalists' concentration
on the various scholastic
traditions
in the Middle
Ages
to the exclusion of
their
(and other philosophical schools') later manifestations, while on the
other
hand
the Renaissance humanists' hostility towards scholasticism and
Aristotelian
logic
and metaphysics have caused historians to slight many
branches
of
Renaissance philosophy. We lack large-scale studies delineating
the diffusion of philosophical manuscripts and
their
use in the Renaissance
on which to base large-scale generalisations, even for such fundamental
writers as Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Here only a brief sketch can be
offered
by way of providing certain general organising themes and
proposing a coherent explanation for the continued importance of
manuscripts as a philosophical medium throughout the Renaissance.
In discussing the place of manuscripts in Renaissance philosophical
thought two
traditions
must be carefully distinguished. The first was the
continued circulation and recopying of medieval and some ancient
philosophical
authors
(who had been available in medieval Latin
transla-
tions) in the Renaissance. Partly this was the expression of the vitality of
II
MANUSCRIPTS
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12
The
conditions of enquiry
certain medieval philosophical schools in early modern intellectual history.
School
texts - those philosophical works which the universities and the
schools
conducted by the religious orders had accepted as
standard
for
teaching - also account for this continuity. The second consisted of the
production and dissemination of new texts written by Renaissance
philosophers and scientists and used to express their own ideas. These works
could
take a variety of forms such as commentaries on other thinkers or
original
discussions
of
problems. Included in this tradition were the writings
of
philosophers who had been ignored in the Middle
Ages
and were
rediscovered
in the Renaissance; among these were Greek philosophical
texts available during the Middle
Ages
but reintroduced into the western
philosophical
tradition in new humanistic Latin translations.
MANUSCRIPT
PRODUCTION
Manuscript production in the Latin West can be broadly divided into two
periods, representing the special needs of a changing reading public. The
first
was
the era of monastic scriptoria which had supplied a monastery's
liturgical,
theological and spiritual needs from the Carolingian age.
Monastic reading was
part
of a meditative process; a monk read a text as a
spur to meditating on its spiritual significance. While interested in classical
and early Christian learning, a monk did not consider a manuscript as
part
of
an encyclopaedic scholarly enterprise, and the monastic manuscripts
generally
reflected this orientation. This functional
attitude
accounts for the
monastic tendency to collect and bind together texts having little
relationship to each other. Some monasteries remained attached to the
handwritten text
well
after the advent
of
printing. In 1492 the monk scholar
Abbot
Johannes
Trithemius of Sponheim urged monks to continue to
practise their writing skills for a variety
of
reasons, some spiritual in
nature
but others related to guaranteeing the availability
of
a variety
of
texts and to
avoiding
errors
which, he argued, occurred in
printed
books.
1
Monastic
manuscripts, however, were not primary disseminators of philosophical
ideas.
The
second period, dating from the
thirteenth
century, differed from the
monastic period in organisation, personnel and aims. Secular interests and
university needs greatly determined which types of manuscripts were
produced. This second period witnessed the increase in the number of
1.
See Trithemius 1973, 1977.
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Manuscripts
13
manuscripts available to a reading public who, while lacking the time or
inclination to copy their own manuscripts, displayed a growing appetite for
various forms of the written word. The growth of literacy in the later
Middle
Ages
expanded the need for written works outside the relatively
narrow confines of monasteries and of government
offices.
Increased manuscript production paralleled the development of the
means both
of
achieving
augmented output through the spread and the use
of
paper and of distributing the greater volume of material through the
concentration of production in workshops. Paper allowed large quantities
of
books to be produced relatively cheaply; this both responded to and
furthered increased literacy and education.
Vellum
and parchment were
usually
limited to the production of specific varieties of books, especially
those intended for wealthy clients and permanent government records.
Centralisation in workshops made possible the acquisition of manuscripts
by
a larger number of individuals in cities, just as bookfairs permitted the
growth
of
an international market. Entrepreneurs who either produced the
finished product itself or acted as middle men in selling or reselling
manuscripts appeared to service an expanding clientele. In time manuscript
merchandising became a specialised business with individuals devoting
themselves
and their shops solely to manuscripts (earlier in the Middle
Ages,
merchants sold manuscripts together with spices, armour, clothing and so
on, just as later in the Renaissance bookdealers sold both manuscripts and
printed texts). The famous Florentine bookseller Vespasiano da
Bisticci
(1421—98)
represents the high point of Italian Renaissance manuscript
bookselling;
he employed scribes able to write in Greek and Hebrew and
engaged
in the international book trade. Vespasiano supplied the greatest
book
collectors
of
his day with a steady volume
of
books
usually written in
his own workshop.
2
While the most successful of the Florentine book-
dealers of his day, Vespasiano was only one of the fourteen bookdealers
active
in
that
city.
A
significant element in the commercialisation
of
manuscript production
and sale was the substitution of stocks of ready-to-sell manuscripts for the
production-on-demand system, a change evident by the end of the twelfth
century. Scribes produced large quantities of those texts which dealers felt
would
attract an audience,
rather
than
responding only to the particular
requests of wealthy clients. Shops employed their own lay and clerical
scribes,
illustrators and other specialists to provide all they needed for
2.
See De la Mare 1965.
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The
conditions of enquiry
producing
standard
types of books. Such shops could offer a customer a
variety
of
books
in any format, at a wide range
of
prices,
immediately or in a
relatively
short period
of
time. Mass production,
of
course,
did damage the
quality of the final product. Not surprisingly, during the early years of
printing these manuscript dealers became the major producers and
distributors
of
printed
books. As in many other respects, such as format and
subject-matter, so in personnel, gradualism marked the transition from
manuscript to
printed
book.
LIBRARIES
The
increased demand for manuscripts as
well
as established means of
obtaining desiderata through professional bookdealers accompanied the
development of the 'public' library in the Renaissance, places where books
could
be read and consulted and not simply conserved.
3
Monasteries usually
had libraries reflecting their particular interests, and the books therein were
not meant for regular outside use. This did not mean
that
monastic books
never
circulated;
there
was a brisk lending activity in the Middle
Ages.
Monks
even copied books for individuals outside their houses (although in
the later Middle
Ages
monasteries often employed outside scribes to
fill
their needs), and the humanists felt free to borrow texts from monasteries
and often did not bother to
return
them. But the monastic libraries were
not meant to be general research centres. A different form
of
library arose in
the houses of the mendicant orders, especially the Dominicans and the
Franciscans; their libraries were often connected with studia generalia, the
theological
schools maintained by the religious orders to
train
their
members.
4
The Dominicans from their beginnings in the early
thirteenth
century stressed learning and required their houses to maintain libraries
where often appreciable holdings of philosophical texts were housed and
read. Unlike the monasteries, the mendicant houses usually did not produce
the manuscripts themselves but purchased them from professional scribes.
The
use of chains to conserve the manuscripts
attests
to their use by a wide
range of readers. One order, the Brethren of the Common
Life
in the
Netherlands and Germany, produced manuscripts specially for laymen.
The
medieval university libraries housed significant collections of
philosophical
manuscripts. However, the universities developed libraries
only
gradually, as adjuncts to their teaching function; nevertheless, in time
3. On the medieval library, see Thompson 1939 and Christ 1984. 4. See
Humphrey
1964.
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Manuscripts
15
special
collections appeared for the use of both masters and students,
although most university libraries contained relatively small holdings
meant to supplement classroom teaching. In due course they became
depositories for a large volume of philosophical manuscripts and main-
tained their manuscript character even after the advance
of
the
printed
book
as the primary pedagogical
instrument.
The
library
of
the Sorbonne
of
the University
of
Paris, for example, was
founded in
1257.
Its collection grew as a result both
of
the donation
of
books
and their purchase from professional booksellers. It had two sections: one
containing books for reference where the more valuable books were
chained, and the other functioning as a lending library which included
duplicates and relatively unused works; masters were permitted to hold
books
on loan for long periods of time. A deposit was required when
borrowing books. The Sorbonne also maintained a list
of
works
available at
the monastic libraries in Paris which
students
could consult;
there
was even a
rudimentary interlibrary loan system. By the middle of the fourteenth
century the collection had reached approximately two thousand texts, and
it remained a major source of philosophical works throughout the
Renaissance. Petrarch and
Coluccio
Salutati both owned Latin translations
of
Platonic treatises which had been copied from manuscripts in the
Sorbonne.
5
While
public libraries existed in the Middle
Ages,
the Renaissance
occasioned
the development
of
large collections open to the public, usually
independent of monasteries, universities and studia generalia. Italy led the
way
in providing libraries for a broad spectrum of scholars. The first such
public library was
that
of San Marco in Florence, endowed by Cosimo de'
Medici
and functioning by 1444. It incorporated manuscripts from the large
and valuable collection
of
the Florentine bibliophile
Niccolo
Niccoli
(1364-
1437)
as
well
as special books purchased from Vespasiano da
Bisticci.
It
provided the inspiration for subsequent public libraries. Individuals of
noble birth, such as the Este princes of Ferrara, also assembled large
manuscript collections, but such libraries certainly did not specialise in
philosophy. Yet the library of the Duke of Milan in 1459 contained 950
items with a substantial minority devoted to philosophical and scientific
texts. This collection's lack
of
interest in recent scholastic philosophical and
scientific
works reflected humanistic distaste for scholasticism.
The
most
important
of these libraries was the Vatican. Originally
5. See Ullman 1973, pp.
41-53.
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The conditions of enquiry
planned by Nicholas V, who had worked on the establishment of the San
Marco
library, it received its
official
form
under
Sixtus IV in
1475,
at which
time it contained 2,527 manuscript volumes. Scholars and ecclesiastics in
Rome could read and borrow manuscripts from the collection. One
element which distinguished the Vatican from other contemporary
libraries was its relatively large number of Greek manuscripts and recent
translations of philosophical and patristic works from Greek into Latin.
Valuable
also for Greek works was the library
of
Cardinal Bessarion, which
was
housed in Rome during his lifetime and
then
bequeathed to
Venice,
where it formed, after decades
of
neglect,
the basis
of
the Marciana Library.
Outside Italy
there
were collections such as those of the
King
of Hungary,
Matthias Corvinus (1440—90), which was built on the Italian model, of
the Englishman Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, which included a wide
variety of manuscripts, and of the Duke of Burgundy, whose large library
reflected his medieval tastes. These libraries remained manuscript
collec-
tions
well
after the invention
of
printing. In fact, Federigo da Montefeltro,
Duke
of Urbino (1444-82), specifically eschewed
printed
books when
founding his large personal library. Many libraries housed more manu-
scripts
than
printed
books
well
into the sixteenth century.
A
different type of library, but one which had some importance in the
diffusion
of philosophical texts in the Renaissance, was
that
of individual
scholars. University
students
and professors often formed collections of
texts for their own specialised use, often maintaining catalogues with
apposite comments on the whole collection. Individuals also made their
own
collections of excerpts, called florilegia, from philosophical authori-
ties,
thereby bringing together from many manuscripts the material they
felt
important
to their research. These libraries are especially difficult to
judge since they were often dispersed after the death
of
their owners and the
extant catalogues are often incomplete.
Further,
we have no way of
knowing
how many scholars would have had access to these collections.
The
library of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, which included a large
number of philosophical texts, ancient and medieval, was sold to his
nephew, Gianfrancesco
Pico,
but was dispersed after his death. Later
there
were the exceptionally large and varied collections
of
Fulvio
Orsini
(1529—
1600) in Rome and Gian Vincenzo Pinelli
(1535-1601)
in Padua. These
manuscripts subsequently entered other collections. The library
of
Giorgio
Valla
in Venice was especially rich in Greek scientific treatises and during its
owner's lifetime was open to scholars interested in mathematics. After
Valla's
death the books were dispersed. Whatever the limits of our
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