Print Culture in Renaissance Italy.

This study traces the evolution of the role of the editor in Italy as the printing industry developed over the course of the sixteenth century. Richardson contends that the editor, once an anonymous figure, by 1530 had become an important part in the production of most texts. By introducing lexical and syntactical changes, adding supplementary material such as indexes or marginal notes, or changing a work's content, editors considerably influenced a book's fortune and reception. Editors justified such modifications with an imaginative array of metaphors which suggested the extent of their intrusive activities. They figured themselves as doctors who healed the wounds inflicted by an earlier editor; as sculptors who restored damaged antique statues by replacing missing limbs; as restorers who polished to its original brightness a jewel lying in dung; and as gardeners, who extirpated overgrown weeds. Richardson concentrates on the editorial procedures of Girolamo Ruscelli, Lodovico Dolce and Lodovico Domenichi, whose revisions of works by Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Sannazaro and lesser figures affected the fortunes of these texts.

Richardson's study is organized as a comparison of the methods of Venetian and Florentine editors. This procedure offers illuminating insights into broader cultural issues such as Venetian editors' gradual adoption of a Trecento Tuscan standard and the cultural rivalry between Florence and Venice. In this respect Richardson's study complements Paolo Trovato's Con ogni diligenza corretto: la stampa e le revisioni editoriali dei testi letterari italiani (1470-1570) (1991): Trovato's book focuses largely on editing in Venice; Richardson's examination of Venetian and Florentine editorial achievements casts new light on how editors in both cities influenced and imitated each other.

Richardson is quite straightforward about what constitutes a well-edited text: respect for a work's manuscript sources and a refusal to alter the language and content to conform with contemporary linguistic standards. Hence Richardson's comparisons of Venetian and Florentine editorial procedures invariably favor the achievements of the latter. Editors working for Venetian publishers were more innovative in their introduction of what Daniel Javitch has termed paratextual or supplementary material. Florentine editors tended to be less cavalier in their emendations. Before turning to the examination of an exceptional production, chapters devoted to a comparison of editorial techniques typically list numerous examples of arbitrary revisions.

One of the most impressive features of this book is the wealth of material examined. At times, however, Richardson overlooks the importance of evidence not furnished by the books themselves. In his discussion of the 1502 Aldine and 1506 Giuntine editions of the Commedia, Richardson underscores the latter's failure to supplant the Venetian production. This observation fails to take into consideration other reasons for which Florentines did not produce another edition of the poem until 1595. Since Aldus sued the Giunta press in 1507 and 1514 for their pirating of his titles, it would have made little sense for the Giunti to antagonize Aldus further by printing another of his titles. In addition the well-known Florentine preference for manuscripts - the culto del bello nourished under the Medici - made the city less disposed to print culture. Finally, as Christian Bec has shown in Les Livres des florentins, the popularity of the Commedia meant that many Florentines already owned manuscripts of the poem and were thus less likely to purchase a printed edition of the work. Elsewhere in his consideration of the impact of the Inquisition on publishing, Richardson notes the poor critical fortune of Pietro da Fino's 1568 edition of the Commedia but overlooks the fact that the printer's activities were curtailed by his arrest in 1571 for selling prohibited titles. Many critics would also dispute Richardson's characterization of Cosimo I as a benevolent patron of the Accademia Fiorentina.

Such oversights, however, do not detract from Richardson's conclusions. This is an impressively researched study, which provides a painstaking account of vernacular scholarship. This book should be read by anyone interested in the shaping of Italian medieval and Renaissance literary traditions.

DEBORAH PARKER University of Virginia