Aldus Manutius's Warning against the Printers of Lyon, Venice (1503)

Source: Scanned from the manuscript held in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris: BN, Ms. Gr. 3064, c. 85.

Citation:
Aldus Manutius's Warning against the Printers of Lyon, Venice (1503), Primary Sources on Copyright (1450-1900), eds L. Bently & M. Kretschmer, www.copyrighthistory.org

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Record-ID: i_1503

Permanent link: https://copyrighthistory.org/cam/tools/request/showRecord.php?id=record_i_1503

Full title:
Aldus Manutius's Warning against the Printers of Lyon

Full title original language:
N/A

Abstract:
This is a manifesto issued by Aldus Manutius to warn readers against the printers of Lyon who had been counterfeiting his editions of classic Greek and Roman authors. It is part of a series of complaints which Aldus submitted in Venice and Rome to have his works protected against piracy. The commentary describes the context in which Aldus took the decision to publish his manifesto. It argues that with the emergence of a book market, the problem of counterfeit and plagiarism became increasingly widespread but was not always viewed as disgraceful. Neither was there any established mechanism for the prosecution of offenders. The commentary investigates the concepts of originality and plagiarism in the context of the culture of copying and sharing texts, carried on from the manuscript age, and concludes that by trying to judge the cases of plagiarism during the Renaissance by our modern standards, we risk oversimplification, anachronism, and insensitivity to changes in the 'cultural meaning' of these concepts.

1 Commentary:
commentary_i_1503

Bibliography:
  • Shaw, D. J., 'The Lyons counterfeit of Aldus's Italic type: A new chronology', in 'The Italian book 1465-1800: Studies presented to Denis E. Rhodes', ed. by D. V. Reidy (London, 1993), 117-133

  • Renouard, Antoine-Auguste, 'Annales de l'Imprimerie des Alde, ou histoire des trois Manuce et de leurs editions', 2 vols (Paris: Renouard, 1803)

  • Lowry, Martin, 'The world of Aldus Manutius: business and scholarship in Renaissance Venice' (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979)

  • Didot, Ambroise-Firmin, 'Alde Manuce et l'Hellenisme a Venise' (Paris: Didot, 1875)


Related documents in this database:
1525: Luther's 'Admonition to the Printers'
1545: Luther's 'Warning to the Printers'
1469: Johannes of Speyer's Printing Monopoly
1502: Aldus Manutius's Petition against Counterfeiters
1517: Venetian Decree on Press Affairs
1545: Venetian Decree on Author-Printer Relations

Author: Aldus Manutius

Publisher: Aldus Manutius

Year: 1503

Location: Venice

Language: Latin

Source: Scanned from the manuscript held in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris: BN, Ms. Gr. 3064, c. 85.

Persons referred to:
Catullus, Gaius Valerius
Horace
Juvenal, Decimus Junius Juvenalis
Lucan
Manutius, Aldus
Martial, Marcus Valerius Martialis
Persius
Propertius, Sextus
Terence
Tibullus, Albius
Virgil

Places referred to:
Brescia
Florence
Lyon
Rome
Venice

Cases referred to:
N/A

Institutions referred to:
Aldine Press

Legislation:
N/A

Keywords:
book trade
classics, Greek and Latin
counterfeit
fraud
plagiarism
privileges, Papal
privileges, Venetian
reprints
signature
typography

Responsible editor: Joanna Kostylo

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