Dissertation Information for James David Ramer NAME: - James David Ramer
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- Columbia University (USA) (1969)
ADVISORS: - Oliver L. Lilley
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - None
MPACT Status: Incomplete - Ambiguous
Title: Fifteenth-century Spanish Printing
Abstract: Comprehensive studies of early Spanish printing have been almost entirely the
province of German and Spanish bibliographers, most notably Konrad Haebler and
Francisco Vindel. Each author, however, tends to emphasize the contributions of
his own compatriots. This thesis attempts to re-evaluate the typographic history
of fifteeth-century Spain and to provide an impartial assessment of the roles of
both emigrant and native printers.
Of the twenty-five sites in Spain for which there are extant incunabula,
emigrants dominated the presses at Tortosa, Lerida, Tarragona, Montserrat,
Valencia, and Saragossa in the Kingdoms of Aragon, as well as at Pamplona in
Navarre. In the kingdoms of Castile, emigrants out-produced the native printers
at Murcia, Seville, Segovia, Burgos, Toldeo, and Coria, as well as at Granada.
Native presses were dominant at Barcelona, Gerona, Mallorca, and Hijar in
Aragon, and at Monterey, Guadalajara, Huete, Salamanca, Valladolid, and Zamora
in Castille. The nationality of the anonymous printer at Mondonedo is unknown.
Collectively some thirty-four emigrant printers are credited with 524 works
(48,933 leaves) compared to 320 works (22,205 leaves) assigned t; some twenty-
nine printers. Thirty four works (2,359 leaves) were produced by an
emigrant/native partnership or can not be definitively assigned to either an
emigrant or native press. The most productive shops were those of the anonymous
native printer at Salamanca (7,482 leaves), of Meinardus Ungut and Stanislaus
Polonus at Seville (7,406 leaves), and of Paul Hurus at Saragossa (6,861
leaves). These three were followed by a cluster of emigrant printers.
Primacy is awarded to emigrant printers at seven of teh Aragonese and Navarrese
sites and to native printers at four. In Castile and Granada, emigrants were
first at five sites, natives at eight, possibly nine. Valencia, Barcelona, and
Segovia vie for the honor of being the first Spanish city in which the art of
printing was practiced, but evidence is too circumstantial to settle the
question conclusively.
The most productive printers were also the best. Emigrant printers,
consequently, were superior craftsmen in comparison to most of their native
coleagues. Paul Hurus desereves special recognition. Woodcuts, often derived
from German models, were used extensively by both emigrants and natives. Types
were quickly adapted to local tastes; less than one-tenth of the books are in
roman letter.
The Church and the Crown were the most frquent sources of outside financial
support for the early presses. Indulgences, litugrical works, laws, ordinances,
and the like account for almost one-fifth of all Spanish incunabula. An
unusually high number of texts are in the vernacular; 345 are in Spanish, 121 in
Catalan, 1 in Portugese, while 402 are in Latin and 9 in Hebrew. The early
Spanish printers did not devote most of the energies to resurrecting classical
literature, as was the case in so many European countries. A majority of the
late medieval and early Renaissance Spanish writers who are today considered of
primary literary importance were brought into print before the fifteenth century
ended. Translations of the contemporary literature of other countries are also
numerous among the imprints of the early Spanish presses.
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MPACT Scores for James David Ramer A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:01:41
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