The Book in the Renaissance
Andrew Pettegree, the author of The Book in the Renaissance
I wonder how the following comments of his relate to Hebrew printing.
Q: What did you find most interesting of the trends that you uncovered in your study of the early book industry?
A: Two things. The first is the extent to which the new book market was underpinned by books that hadn’t played any role in the conventional narrative of what’s called the “print revolution.” The earliest commentators welcomed print, celebrating it as an essential part of the civilizing process on the way to modernity.
But inevitably this view concentrates on the most eye-catching of the newly-printed books: the great Bibles of Gutenberg and Plantin, Copernicus and scientific books, atlases, maps. The fact is that these big books almost always lost money. The engine room of the new industry turned out to be small books and pamphlets, at most two days’ work in the print shop, which could turn a quick profit. I think our project is the first thing that has really spelled this out in quantitative terms.
The second thing is our discovery of what you might call a two-speed Europe. The conventional geography of print always emphasizes how quickly it spread throughout Europe. Within 50 years of print’s invention, over 200 places had a printing press. But most of those early presses only survived a few years—they quickly went out of business and print contracted. What we discovered is around 85 percent of print output was produced close to the geographical center of European trade—in France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. This was the heart of production. Outside this central zone, Spain, England, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe had essentially dependent markets.