Thesis
A copy census of the first printed editions of the Bible in Italian (1471-1494)
- Abstract:
-
This thesis examines the post-publication fortunes of the first printed editions of the Bible in Italian through the study of surviving copies of these editions, with a particular focus on evidence from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Following the 1466 Mentelin Bible in Middle High German, Italy was the second country to see a vernacular Bible translation in print, with two competing translations produced in 1471, and nine further complete Italian Bible editions before the end of the century. Just over 200 copies of these editions survive in institutional collections, each with its individual history revealed through the material evidence it contains, such as owners’ inscriptions, marginal annotations or other provenance marks.
The findings are first contextualised in a chapter which studies the cultural developments which led to the publication of these editions in late fifteenth-century Venice. The following chapters consider the physical characteristics of the surviving copies, including a study of their decoration, and analyse the findings of the census in terms of early ownership up to the end of the sixteenth century, and how these early owners and readers interacted with the Bible, based on evidence found within the copies. Following a brief consideration of the loss and survival of copies, a detailed catalogue, which lies at the heart of this thesis, provides descriptions of each of the surviving copies.
The wealth of previously understudied (and often entirely unstudied) evidence for Italians’ encounters with the Holy Scriptures revealed within this thesis demonstrates the value of systematic study of surviving early printed books for understanding their history of reception and use.
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Authors
Contributors
- Institution:
- University of Oxford
- Role:
- Supervisor
- Institution:
- University of Oxford
- Division:
- HUMS
- Department:
- Medieval & Modern Languages
- Role:
- Examiner
- Role:
- Examiner
- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0505m1554
- Grant:
- 2105490
- DOI:
- Type of award:
- DPhil
- Level of award:
- Doctoral
- Awarding institution:
- University of Oxford
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Deposit date:
-
2025-07-27
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Martyna Grzesiak
- Copyright date:
- 2024
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