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HISTORY OF PRINTING.
1614. Peter de Trieis, or de Treveris, who is supposed to have derived his name from Triers, or Treveris, a city of Germany, in which he was bora, erected the first press in Southwabk, and his earliest work was the Moral DisHchs of Cato, with Erasmus's Scolia, in Latin. His press was employed by John Reynes and Lawrence Ao- drewe ; ana he sold or published books for William Rastell, Robert Copeland, and others, in the city of London. He lived at the sign of the Widows, and continued his labours till 1552. Anthony Wood imagined that this artist printed some of Wittington's works at Oxford, in 1527. The list of his known typographical productions amount to twenty-seven.
1514. Pope Leo X. having purchased the five books of Tacitut, for five hundred zechins of Angelo Arcomboldo, who had brought them from the abbey of Corvey, in Westphalia, committed them to the care and editorship of the learned Beroaldo, and in order to secure to him the reward of his labour as editor and collator of the manuscripts, he denounced sentence of excom- munication, besides the penalty of two hundred ducats and forfeiture of the books, against any person who should reprint the work within ten years of its publication by Beroaldo, without his express permission. This is generally considered as the earliest instance of the positive protection of literary property.
Notwiuistanding these serious prohibitions of Leo X. the work was pirated and printed at Milan in the same year, by Alesandro Manuziano, who had established himself as a printer in opposition to Aldus Manutius, and who con- tended with him in the publication of the works of antiquity. Manuziano was cited before the pontiff to answer for his offence ; but owing to the interference of some powerful friends, he was excused the weightiest portion of his punishment, namely, excommunication. A compromise was subsequently entered into between Manuziano and Beroaldo, and the former permitted, under certain restrictions, to vend his spurious edition.
1515. In the 10th session of the council of Lateran, held under Leo X. in this vear, it was decreed, under pain of excommunication, that for the future no book should be printed at Rome, nor in the other cities and dioceses ; un- less, if at Rome, it had been examined by the " vicar of his holiness," and the " master of the palace ;" or, if elsewhere, by the bishop of the diocese, or a doctor appointea by him, and had received the signature of approbation.
In Rome, the compilers of the catalogues, or indexes, of prohibited books, are still continued, and called the congregation of the index. The works noticed in the indexes are divided into three classes, the first containing a list of con- demned authors, the whole of whose writings are forbidden, except by express permission ; the second enumeratmg works which are prohi- bited, till they have been purged of what tiie inquisitors deem erronepus; the third compre- hending those anonymous publications which are either partially, or totally forbidden. The
manner in which the Romish literary inquisitors formerly decided upon the works presented to them, was sometimes criminally careless, and the results sufficientiy curious. Gregory Capu- chin, a Neapolitan censor, informs us, that bis practice was to bum such BibUi as were defec- tive in the text; and that his mode of ascertaining the accuracy or inaccuracy of the Latin Bibles was, to examine the third chapter of Genesis, and "if I find," says he, "the words, ' in sudore vultus tui, vesceris pane tuo,' instead of ' in sudore vultus tui, vesceris pane donee,' (Uius adding the word tuo,) I direct such copies not to be corrected, but to be committed to the flames." As the indexes were formed in diffe- rent countries, the opinions were sometimes dia- metrically opposite to each other, and what one censor, or inquisitor, allowed, another condemn- ed ; and even in some instances, the censor of one country had his own works condenmed in another. Thus the learned Arias Montanus, who was a chief inquisitor in the Netherlands, and concerned in the compilation of the Antwerji Index, had his own works placed in the Index of Rome; while the inquisitor of Naples was so displeased with the Index of Spain, as to persist in asserting, that it had never been printed at Madrid. This difference in judgment produced a doubtful and uncertain method of censure, and it became necessary for the inquisitors to subscribe their names to the indexes, in the fol- lowing manner: " I, N. — inquisitor for such a diocese, do say, that this present book, thus b^ me corrected, may be tolerated and rrad, until such time as it shall be thought worthy of some further correction." But these prohibilory and expwgatory indexes were reserved only for the inquisitors, and when printed, delivered only into their hands, or those of their most trusty associates. Philip II. in his letters patent, for the printing of the first Spanish index, acknow- ledges, that it was printed by the king's printer, and at his own expense, not for the public, but solely for the inquisitors, and certain ecclesias- tics, who were not to be permitted to communi- cate the contents of it, or give a copy of it to any one. And Sandoval, arcnbishop of Toledo, in the edition of 1619, prohibits, under pain of the greater excommunication, any one to print the index, or cause it to be printed ; or when printed, to send it out of the kingdom, without a special license. So difficult, indeed, were they to be obtained, that it is said the Spanish and Portuguese indexes were never known till the English took Cadiz ; and the index of Antwerp was accidentally discovered by Junius, who afterwards reprinted it.
1515, />i«i Aldus Manutius, one of the most celebrated names in the annals of typography. A modern writer* has justiy remarked, "that the name of Aldus will live in the memory of man as long as there survives in the world the love of literature, of which he has shewn himself so de-
- BMiogmphieat and JtefroipteUte MiKiUanf. London,
John WUaon, 1830, post Svo. pp. lOt.
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