Printed knowledge: Editorial Practices and Commercial Strategies in Early Modern Printers’ Manuals

Abstract

This article aims to understand how knowledge was produced and publicized in Early Modern printers’ manuals. Firstly, I explore the parameters for the consolidation of the manuals as a genre in the European book market. Secondly, I analyse authors’, editors’ and printers’ recurrent practices of reconfiguring illustrations from previous printers’ manuals as an editorial strategy which aimed at spreading practical knowledge to a wider audience. Finally, I examine the typographic and linguistic modes of presentation of testimonial narrative and discursive alterity. I argue that Early Modern printers’ manuals result from the confluence of compilatory practices registered in ink by authors and artists, economic strategies adopted by editors and booksellers, the typographic language used at printing workshops, and the collective spirit which supported a project of knowledge diffusion.

Keywords:
history of knowledge; history of the book; early modern history