Cristina Dondi

Writer and academic Professor Cristina Dondi explains how a new project is casting light on the first 50 years of printed books in Europe and their impact on society.

Around 500,000 books survive from the first 50 years of printed works following Gutenberg’s invention of the press in the 15th century. They are scattered between 4,000 libraries and little is known about who owned them and how they moved between countries. Dondi, head of the 15th-Century Book Trade Project, explains how a team of experts is using knowledge of Latin and Greek, European languages, history, book catalogues, handwriting analysis and heraldry to tell the full story about the economic conditions that brought about the printing revolution and about how the press changed the dynamics of the books trade, encouraged literacy and helped cross-border trade to flourish. When printing reached Venice the city became the European centre for the new printed book trade.  The Venetians had the skills, the continental mercantile networks, and the financial resources to dominate the new and massively expanding industry.

Dondi is a research fellow in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford. She was awarded a Knight of the Order of the Star of Italy for her work tracking the distribution and circulation of books in the 15th century.

This event is part of Italian day at the festival.