Printed, Painted, and Illuminated: Venetian Visual Culture at the Dawn of Print (1469-1517)

Abstract

After movable type arrived in Venice in 1469, the Venetian print industry quickly established itself as the preeminent European center for the production of books. This was due to Venice’s position as a nexus of essential elements including capital, materials, technological knowledge, labor, legal protections, and commercial distribution networks. By the end of the fifteenth century, roughly 150 Venetian presses turned out 4,000 editions—nearly twice the production of Paris, Venice’s nearest rival. Thus, it is Venice, rather than Gutenberg’s Mainz, that emerges as a key geography for understanding the innovative impetus of movable type upon illumination, woodblock illustration, and diagrams in early printed books, and also upon broader visual and material culture in this period. This study is positioned between the history of art, the history of the book, and visual studies. While each chapter is organized as an individual case study, themes running through each investigation address Venetian publishing more wholistically. Proceeding chronologically, the chapters cover the crucial first decades of print in Venice. The work of the French émigré Nicholas Jenson covers the 1470s. Analysis of the German printer Erhard Ratdolt’s sojourn in Venice addresses the 1480s. Finally, a consideration of the Florentine publisher Lucantonio Giunta analyzes from 1490 through the turn of the century. Each chapter also focuses on a different business structure in the nascent industry. Jenson shifted from investment in single print runs to an investment firm that allowed him to weather the financial adversity of the volatile early industry. After losing his original partners to plague, Ratdolt was printing under his name alone by 1482. Lucantonio Giunta was a publisher who coordinated capital, expert printers, editors, content, and illustration with little physical involvement in the production himself. Finally, each chapter accesses a different mode of visual elaboration in relation to printed text: illumination in Jenson’s presentation copies; diagrams in Ratdolt’s geometric and astronomical texts; and woodblock illustration in the books created for Lucantonio Giunta. Analysis of the presentation copies given to investors in Jenson’s firm demonstrates how he commissioned illumination of the highest quality to frame the new technology of movable type with ancient technologies of reproduction including coins, wax seals, and intaglio gems. These antique allusions visually convinced investors of the authority of printed classical works at a time when the printing press was feared to corrupt Latin through poor editorial practices. Erhard Ratdolt’s use of the printing press to incorporate complex geometric and astronomical diagrams also considered the translucency of the paper support. As the paper folio is turned, diagrams aligned on either side become visible simultaneously, allowing for comparison and the production of knowledge. This interest in the interaction between paper and light is supported by a broader Venetian fascination in unexpected shifts in transparency and translucency in emerging technologies at this time, including oil paints and clear glass. In the final chapter, modular woodblock illustration in Lucantonio Giunta’s publications is considered. From hand-held books of hours to choir books of record-setting size, the repetition of woodcut illustration established a symbolically activated and visually unified network of reuse across public and private space. The visual innovation prompted by the advent of movable type was not simply informed by Venetian visual culture, but rather participated in a complex ecology of visual production that was mutually responsive and evolving.