CHAPTER IV.

ITALY.

Italian historians have several times attempted to bring forward Pamphilo Castaldi as the inventor of printing. It is little use to recapitulate here the various unsupported assertions on which this claim is based,—a claim which, if it ever had, has now ceased to have any sensible supporters.

We may safely assume, with our present knowledge, that the art of printing was introduced into Italy in 1465 by two Germans, Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz. On their arrival in Italy they settled first in the Monastery of Saint Scholastica at Subiaco, an establishment of Benedictines, of which Cardinal Turrecremata was Abbot, where they would be in congenial society, since, as Cardinal Quirini says, many of the inmates were Germans.

The first book which they printed was a _Donatus pro puerulis_, of which they said in their list, printed in 1472, ‘unde imprimendi initium sumpsimus.’ Unfortunately, of this _Donatus_ no copy is known, though rumours of a copy in a private collection in Italy have from time to time been circulated. The earliest book from their press of which copies are in existence, is the Cicero _De Oratore_, printed before 30th September 1465.[16] It has been always a moot point whether this Cicero _De Oratore_ or the Mainz _Ciceronis Officia et Paradoxa_, printed in the same year, can justly claim to be the first printed Latin classic, while the claims of the _De Officiis_ of Zel, which, though, undated, is very probably as early, have been entirely ignored.

[16] This book has usually been dated later than the _Lactantius_, that is, after 29th October 1465; but M. Fumagalli, in his _Dei primi libri a stampa in Italia_, Lugano, 1875, 8vo, describes a copy containing a manuscript note dated ‘Pridie Kal. Octobres, M.cccc.lxv.,’ so that the _Cicero_ must be considered the first known book printed in Italy. On the other hand, it should be noticed that some authorities consider the inscription to be a forgery.

The Subiaco _De Oratore_ is a large quarto of 109 leaves, with thirty lines to the page. Like the first German books, it is beautifully printed, and shows few signs of being an early production. Sweynheym and Pannartz must have learnt their business carefully, for this their first book is printed by half sheets, _i.e._ two pages at a time, though other printers were still printing their quartos page by page.

On the 29th October 1465 these printers issued their first dated book, the first edition of Lactantius _De divinis institutionibus_. Of this