Schmitt C.B. (ed.) The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy
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Manuscripts
17
knowledge
of such libraries, they provided large depositories of manu-
scripts which could be consulted by others.
MANUSCRIPTS
FROM
THE THIRTEENTH TO THE
FIFTEENTH
CENTURY
The
selection of manuscripts to be written, sold and collected reflected
readers' scholarly and popular tastes. The church, including the monaster-
ies,
continued to produce a limited quantity of manuscripts for liturgical
purposes
(there
simply was no need for more
than
one or two copies of
service
books for each monastery or church); the universities, as
will
be seen,
specialised
in large, regular production; readers generally searched for
works
which appealed to their religious and literary tastes. Romances,
spiritual readings and vernacular treatises appeared in abundance for a large
and growing public. The broader social origins of Renaissance readers also
accounts for the variety
of
manuscripts produced
—
from unadorned, paper
manuscripts to the expensive, illuminated texts on vellum which have
received
the bulk of scholarly attention.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the balance of manuscripts was
altered. This was especially a function of the deep commitment to ancient
writers, first Latin and
then
Greek, whose works had previously had a
limited circulation, or had existed in unique exemplars, or were unknown
because of the general ignorance of Greek among academic philosophers.
The
humanists in their search for ancient writings made available the
writings of both popular and obscure ancient
authors
and those Fathers of
the church whose ideas had been uncongenial to the dominant scholastic
syntheses. Of these ancient texts certainly the most
important
for
philosophy were the Platonic and Neoplatonic writings which appealed to
philosophers, poets and theologians. The sceptical writings of Sextus
Empiricus are
another
example of Greek philosophical texts which were
rediscovered and popularised.
In the post-monastic period
there
were basically
three
types of
professional book producers. The first were the large, commercial
bookdealers who were independent
entrepreneurs
and produced a great
variety of manuscripts. The second were the individual scribes who copied
manuscripts to
fulfil
particular commissions; they generally worked alone.
While
a scribe might specialise in philosophical manuscripts, generally these
two
groups were not devoted specifically to producing philosophical
books.
The
third
group was connected with the universities either directly
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i8
The
conditions of enquiry
or indirectly. The development of the curriculum and teaching procedure
required the creation of a new type of book production which was
closely
connected to the university administration.
The
introduction of systematic philosophy into the universities in the
thirteenth
century significantly affected both the type of manuscripts
available
and the way they were produced and circulated. Manuscripts
clearly
reflected educational practice. In content they included both original
texts,
especially Aristotle, and the means of explaining them, above all the
commentaries by university teachers. Indeed, the commentary became the
distinctive teaching tool of the universities, and a variety of forms were
devised
to integrate commentary and text. Scholars have identified no less
than
ten arrangements of commentary with text used in philosophical,
theological
and legal manuscripts.
6
The standardisation of university
teaching around certain authorities required the lecturers to invent a means
of
providing
students
with large numbers of required texts. This need
occasioned
a major break with the normal medieval conception of the
manuscript, which
viewed
it as a unique entity and which ignored the
problem of ensuring accuracy for a large number of copies of the same
book.
In order to solve this problem, the universities sponsored the stationarii, or
stationers, who swore an oath to the university and were empowered to
produce, sell and/or loan the texts needed by the
students
and written
according
to specifications laid down by a committee of masters elected
annually. The stationarii pledged to produce, to keep in stock, to advertise
and to sell at a
fixed
price the required textbooks. The university stationarii
were
also a major supplier
of
books
to the libraries
of
the mendicant orders.
As
professional bookdealers, the stationarii employed their own scribes to
copy
manuscripts. The means used to produce many of the texts was the
pecia
or piece system. While
there
is some scholarly disagreement
concerning the
full
operation of the system, we can summarise its basic
elements and relate them to the availability
of
philosophical
material in the
Renaissance.
7
In the pecia system the university committee deposited a text of an
approved
author
with the stationarius. This text, called the exemplar, was
divided
into pieces or peciae of approximately four leaves which the
stationarius distributed to his scribes to be copied out section by section. The
exemplar was essentially a university publication and had been approved for
6. See Powitz 1979. 7. See Destrez 1935;
Fink-Errera
1957, 1962; Pollard 1978.
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accuracy
by the masters' committee, which also inspected the texts to
guarantee fidelity. Since
there
was only one exemplar or original base text
for
subsequent versions, the number
of
errors resulting from the copying of
several
texts was limited. The designated committee each year approved the
text used;
if
it was found deficient in some way, the stationarius was required
to correct the faults. If it was acceptable, then the stationarius could
rent
sections of entire treatises to students for recopying, or could sell copies of
the entire text which he had had made. The university established the prices
for
such texts, and to prevent tampering with the price, Italian universities
detailed the number
of
letters to a line,
of
lines to a column and columns to a
pecia.
Students and masters, in
turn,
would lend their own copies to others to
be copied. Second-hand
trade
in manuscripts also flourished. The
stationarius acted as a middle man in second-hand transactions while the
university regulated the prices charged. The stationarii of the major
universities, such as Paris and Bologna, also exported manuscripts to other
areas of Europe. As a consequence, a substantial percentage of surviving
philosophical manuscripts can be traced to an original pecia text.
A
clear indication of how important and extensive the pecia system was
can be seen in the survival of copies of Thomas Aquinas' commentary on
Aristotle's
Metaphysics, the In duodecim libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis
exposition This long commentary exists in eighty-seven manuscripts of
which
seventy-two are essentially complete and are scattered throughout
Europe. The original version
of
the Expositio deposited with the stationarius
at the University of Paris in the fourteenth century consisted of fifty-three
peciae.
Seventeen of the extant manuscripts can be traced directly to this
exemplar. While several other independent versions of the Expositio exist,
the largest percentage of the manuscripts can be traced back to the Paris
edition. Similarly, Thomas' commentary on Aristotle's Ethics originally
consisted of thirty-eight peciae, and the surviving manuscripts depend
greatly on descendants of this version.
9
There were limits to the pecia system as a means of producing
manuscripts. Only eleven universities used the system, and it functioned
primarily in the faculties of theology and canon law. Further, the pecia
system lasted only through the
thirteenth
century in Paris, although it seems
to have had a longer
life
in other universities. Students in the
arts
faculty did
not depend on the pecia system. They copied out the texts read by the
masters, a procedure called reportatio. Such a system could not be controlled
8. See Reilly 1972. 9. See Brounts 1970.
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The conditions of enquiry
for
errors; but it remained an
important
element in university education
well
into the Renaissance, and a large number of philosophical texts exist
today in reportatio copies, such as those of Pietro Pomponazzi.
10
Whether
through thepecia or the reportatio system, the university teaching procedures
formed a vital element in the production and dissemination
of
philosophical
and scientific texts. Not surprisingly, after the invention of printing the
university-sanctioned texts which had occasioned the creation of the pecia
system were
printed
early and often.
While
the university system guaranteed a ready supply of texts for
students, it also limited the type
of
material available. There existed little in
the way of overt, organised manuscript censorship in the Middle
Ages
and
early Renaissance. An ecclesiastical body might condemn the writings of a
modern
author
and order them to be destroyed, but this was not very
common.
Further,
the various medieval inquisitions lacked any mechanism
for
the systematic scrutiny of manuscripts. Pre-publication censorship
simply did not exist; what control
there
was occurred after a text was
published or when a writer voluntarily submitted his work to church
authorities for approval before publishing it.
11
In general, manuscripts
circulated freely. Nonetheless, real constraints on the type of texts copied
and circulated did exist. While individuals could copy any manuscript for
their own personal use, a bookdealer would not invest his limited capital in
material which did not enjoy an assured audience or the blessings of the
university curriculum. The university system guaranteed
abundant
copies
and wide circulation
of
some
authors
but also helped to limit the diffusion of
others. All this helps to explain the existence of certain works in numerous
manuscripts in the Renaissance but the precarious survival of many others.
PHILOSOPHICAL
MANUSCRIPTS
IN THE
RENAISSANCE
In addition to the availability
of
standard
philosophical works from the later
Middle
Ages,
above all Aristotle and his
interpreters
Averroes and Thomas
Aquinas,
the Renaissance marked the introduction
of
Greek
texts, especially
of
the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle and
of
new translations of
his writings. This is different from the humanists' search for ancient writers
discussed above. Aristotle had been extensively, if not always accurately,
studied in the West since the twelfth century, but the scholastics had not felt
compelled
to read him in the original. Indeed, humanists condemned the
io.
See Kristeller 1955. 11. See FlahifF 1942.
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Manuscripts
21
scholastics
for their indifference, and occasional hostility, to Greek scholar-
ship. While
there
were certain exceptions to the humanists' rejection of
scholastic procedures and authorities -
Coluccio
Salutati knew a variety
of
scholastic writers and some humanists favoured Thomas Aquinas for his
clarity
—
in general humanists did not copy scholastic texts and translations
but preferred instead to study ancient philosophers in the original or in new
translations.
A
new type of manuscript which printing occasioned was the texts
transcribed from
printed
editions. Since small
runs
limited the circulation of
texts,
copying from
printed
books was one solution to this problem. Two
sixteenth-century copies of Bruni's translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian
Oeconomics
produced in Poland were probably copied from
printed
editions. This phenomenon continued through the sixteenth century and
beyond.
It was especially common among
students
who could not afford a
printed
book, or could not find a copy
of
a desired work, or who wished to
have
only a particular section for reference. Platina's De honesta voluptate
was
copied in the sixteenth century from two different incunabula.
Machiavelli's
Ilprincipe circulated in manuscript in Italy after its condemna-
tions in 1559 and 1564 even though it had been published in 1527 and
thereafter and also continued to be available from non-Italian sources.
12
The
form of philosophical manuscripts underwent some change in the
Renaissance.
The medieval philosophical manuscript had by no means
maintained a
fixed,
unchanging format. It altered to fit the needs of
expanding knowledge. Scholars had to devise
ways
of cross-referencing
other works, not an easy task since
there
existed no
standard
reference
system
before printing, and even
then
it
evolved
slowly.
The text of an
auctor or commentary or a compilation
of
texts often incorporated scholarly
apparatuses, such as indexes, chapter headings and paragraph divisions,
devised
by manuscript readers which the
printed
book took over and
improved. All such scholia were meant to
render
the text more accessible
and usable for reading and study. Philosophical manuscripts were
unpaginated and usually written in Gothic script. Those produced through
the pecia system used different scripts for a text and its commentary. They
were
usually of a large format, written in double columns with wide
margins for notes. During the Renaissance smaller manuscripts became
more common, and
slowly
the new humanist handwriting displaced
Gothic
among philosophers and educated men generally, first in Italy and
12.
See Milham 1972; Nebbiai 1978; Reeve 1983.
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The
conditions of enquiry
then throughout Europe. As the format changed, so did other elements.
Abbreviations,
an especially important element in scholastic philosophical
and professional texts, allowing for speed of copying and for economy,
declined
in use. When these manuscripts were recopied by scribes who had
been humanistically trained, they often could not read the abbreviations
since
the new education rejected their abundant use, and they had not been
taught to read them. As a consequence, Renaissance copies
of
medieval
texts
introduced new sources of error in transcription.
Despite
this innovation in form, many medieval themes, authors and
procedures continued to be found in Renaissance philosophical manu-
scripts. This can be seen in the continuity of the commentary as the major
means
of
discussing
a text. However, the humanists did make some changes
in form and added their own methods of discussing texts, such as the oratio
and the praefatio. Commentaries on Aristotle from university centres
remained a consistent element in philosophical training and thought. They
were
to be found throughout Europe and a large percentage
of
them remain
and were read in manuscript.
13
The
entire problem of the diffusion of philosophical manuscripts is only
partially understood. The opportunities for diffusion were many. Medieval
and Renaissance academics moved around freely and usually took their
manuscripts with them. Students seem to have brought their textbooks
with
them when they returned home from university. We find a relatively
broad spread
of
manuscripts
of
works
not often printed in the Renaissance.
This
is especially
true
of works belonging to members of religious orders
with
international connections. A clear example of this type of diffusion,
and the anomalies which could result from it, is the fate of the
logical
and
natural philosophical manuscripts from England.
14
English
logical
studies
in the fourteenth century were centred in Oxford, which boasted
of
a large
body
of international students made up to a great extent of Italians and
members of the mendicant orders. Italian mendicants usually returned
home after their studies, taking their manuscripts with them and placing
them in their orders' libraries. So through a normal academic procedure,
English
manuscripts (or Parisian copies of them) spread through Italy. A
further source of such manuscripts was the presence
of
English
churchmen
in Italy, usually at the papal court, who died
there
and bequeathed their
libraries to religious establishments. Scholars have found some of the best
manuscripts of these logicians in Italy
rather
than
their original academic
13.
See Lohr
1974b,
pp. 228-30. 14. See English Logic 1982, pp. 13-32 (Courtenay).
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23
home.
Further,
the clergy played an
important
role in spreading Italian
manuscript writings outside Italy. Italian manuscripts
of
Bruni's translation
of
the pseudo-Aristotelian Oeconomics, for example, were carried to
Northern Europe by Italian clerics.
15
One aspect of the medieval manuscript tradition the Renaissance
inherited was cosmopolitanism. This is evident in the case of Walter
Burley's
De
vita
et moribus philosophorum (pre-1346), which appealed
particularly to laymen.
16
Burley, an Englishman, wrote his treatise in
Avignon
while visiting the papal court; it became especially popular in Italy
and Central Europe, even serving as a school text in Bohemia, and was
translated into several vernaculars. Over 100 manuscripts exist spread
throughout Central Europe and Italy, and it continued to be copied into the
age
of printing. Indeed, the manuscripts are the best indication of what
Burley
had written, since when the text was
printed
its editors regularly
altered its Latin to make it conform to humanist stylistic ideals.
When philosophical texts were
printed,
the editors usually did not collate
manuscripts. The editio princeps of a text tended to be based on only one
manuscript; and subsequent editions usually just reproduced the previously
printed
text with variants resulting from an occasional consultation of
manuscripts. Aldus Manutius' great Greek Aristotle (1495—8) was based on
a limited number
of
manuscripts and did not utilise the several copies which
were to be found in
Venice
as
part
of the Bessarion library. Isaac Casaubon
in his 1590 edition
of
Aristotle's
Opera relied on previously
printed
editions
for
the base text and only sporadically investigated manuscripts for more
acceptable readings.
17
A
major example
of
the interaction between manuscript and
printed
text
and the continued viability of manuscripts is the case of the intellectual
influences on the young
Galileo.
Recent studies
of
the manuscript sources of
Galileo's
thought have provided
important
findings which illustrate the
dangers
of
underestimating the manuscript culture
of
the Renaissance.
18
In
seeking
philosophical and scientific stimulation
Galileo
made use of the
writings of the
Jesuits
of the
Collegio
Romano. He personally read and
copied
material still in manuscript. The philosophy lectures at the
Collegio
were usually arranged for publication after being delivered and were
carefully
copied by a professional scribe. While publication was anticipated,
there
was often a long period, ranging from a few years to several decades,
15.
See Soudek 1958, 1968. 16. See Stigall 1957; Prelog 1983.
17.
On the Aldine edition, see Sicherl 1976; on Casaubon, see Glucker 1964.
18.
See Wallace
1981a,
1984.
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24
The conditions of enquiry
between the lectures, copying by the professional scribe, deposition in the
university archives, and publication. During the intervening years, lecturers
and students could consult them. Hence, citation from such writings may
derive from the manuscript
rather
than
the printed versions, while the
manuscripts of one set of lectures might incorporate material which came
from a printed text but which was passed on to a reader through a
manuscript transcription.
Galileo
acquired his knowledge of certain
philosophical and scientific ideas through this complex relationship
between manuscript and printed text. It is unwise to make hard and fast
divisions
between manuscripts and printed texts; they were too
interdependent.
Scientific
texts in manuscript remained important for yet another,
technical reason. The exact reproduction of complicated designs of the
heavens required a technological advance which was not available in the
first century
of
printing. Printed designs and drawing could not reproduce
details as clearly and as accurately as needed, so scholars had to rely on
handmade copies in order to secure the fidelity and accuracy demanded by
more complicated scientific study.
While
the most significant body of philosophical material circulating in
the Renaissance was in printed form, manuscripts remained an important
means for the dissemination of ideas throughout Europe.
Well
into the
eighteenth century manuscripts could be found which were meant for a
small body of readers, especially those interested in philosophical and
scientific
questions. A scholar could also use a manuscript to collect a variety
of
writings in one place. Certainly such manuscripts were
closely
related in
form and intellectual audience to the printed book, and may be seen as
supplementary to it. Whether personal collections, school texts or lecture
notes, manuscripts remained
part
of the philosophical culture of the
Renaissance.
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2
THE
IMPACT
OF PRINTING
Printing had an enormous
effect
on all learning, but its impact was neither
revolutionary nor sudden. Instead, over a period of
fifty
to one hundred
years
it so greatly facilitated the dissemination
of
the results
of
enquiry as to
propel philosophy and all other branches of learning into a new era. This
brief
survey attempts to explain how printing affected the conditions of
learning in the Renaissance, and especially how the press communicated the
results of scholarly enquiry. The perspective is
that
of author and reader,
with
the
printer
as usually helpful but occasionally as an obstructionist
intermediary.*
The
development
of
printing
An
earlier innovation helped make printing possible: paper came from
China
through the Near East into the West about noo. It spread quickly
throughout Europe until the majority
of
manuscript books were written on
paper in the early fifteenth century. Paper suited printing far better
than
vellum
(prepared animal skin): it was more pliable, absorbed ink better
than
vellum, and was considerably cheaper.
Johann
Gutenberg at Strasburg and Mainz experimented for years before
he and his associates were able to solve the technical problems necessary for
printing. Their first major achievement was the beautiful forty-two-line
Bible,
probably begun in 1452 and certainly completed by 1455. But
printing did not make a significant impact on learning until presses had
multiplied, their production had diversified, and the reading public had
become
aroused. This led gradually to a broad system of distribution and
marketing. This process began about 1470 and came to
full
fruition about
1500.
By the end
of
the year
1470,
some nineteen towns had printing presses;
*
I wish to
thank
those who
read
and criticised a draft of
this
chapter: Peter Bietenholz, Audrey and
Patrick Douglas, Rudolf Hirsch, Robert Kingdon, Martin Lowry and Gerald Strauss.
25
PRINTING
AND CENSORSHIP
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26
The
conditions of enquiry
by
1500, about 255 towns did. By the end of the incunabular period,
1
European presses had produced over
30,000
editions, a large majority of
them in the 1480s and 1490s. Moreover, any count omits those books which
disappeared without trace;
that
is, not a single copy
of
the press run survives
to document its existence. Possibly 10 to 25 per cent of fifteenth-century
editions may have been lost, and the figure may be higher in the sixteenth
century. Printing expanded severalfold in the sixteenth century, but
counting the editions is not yet possible because insufficient bibliographies
of
countries, places and individual printers have been compiled. A great
number
of
towns
of
2,000
or more inhabitants, and many smaller ones, had
a press at one time or another between 1455 and 1600, some of them
continuously. Compared with the production of manuscripts, printing
multiplied the available stock of books by a factor
that
is difficult to
estimate. But it never completely eliminated the scribe, partly because some
readers and book collectors preferred manuscripts for their beauty and
historicity.
The
first printed books imitated manuscripts, and like them, lacked title
pages
in the modern sense. Instead,
following
the custom of manuscripts,
the recto (front or righthand) side of the first
leaf
presented very brief
information about the contents, perhaps with the author's name. It then
launched into the text. Much
of
the information about the book frequently
appeared at the end
of
the text in a colophon, which consisted
of
a few lines
giving
several or all of the
following:
title, author, name of
printer,
the
person who commissioned the printing (i.e., paid the expenses), place of
publication, and perhaps the day, month, and year of the completion of
printing.
Gradually
printers departed from the model of the handwritten book.
Since
books were usually shipped as unbound sheets, the recto of the first
leaf
became easily soiled; so printers in the 1460s and 1470s often kept it
blank. Between 1470 and 1480 they began to create the title page by placing
a word or two
that
indicated the contents on the otherwise blank page.
Only
after 1520 did almost all printed books provide title pages
that
listed
most or all of the
following:
title, author, printer's mark, sometimes a
comprehensive description of the contents, name of dedicatee, name of
publisher, and year of publication. Indeed, the printer's emblem became a
1.
The use
of
the term 'incunable' (incunabula (plural) in Latin, meaning 'swaddling clothes' and, more
figuratively,
'cradle' or 'origin') for books printed before 1501 began in the middle of the
seventeenth century and has been used ever since. Although convenient, it arbitrarily divides the
books
of
one century from another, and has led scholars and collectors to concentrate their energies
on incunabular publishing to the neglect
of
sixteenth-century printing. Fortunately, this
attitude
is
changing.
On incunabula, see Geldner 1978; Biihler i960.
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