Scheda Tesi

Dettaglio

• Abstract
  This research was conducted with the aim of considering the impact that the introduction of printing had on the practices of institutional communication. This choice has led us to identify the sixteenth century as the chronological area of analysis. In fact, the sixteenth century is a moment of extreme rethinking of communication techniques and of profound coexistence between the practices of manual copying and those of printing. In order to propose accurate considerations, we have also limited the geographical area to the city of Milan, a very important center in the early modern age landscape. In order to reach accurate reflections, we have chosen to approach the problem from four different perspectives. First of all, we tried to show the channels through which the “gride” were circulating, who were the officers in charge of the management of this material, and how such documents were framed within the Milanese administration. This section introduces the work as it is relevant for both the manuscripts and the typographical documents. A further aspect that we have taken into consideration is the logic which the administration chose to commission the printing of official writings to certain printers. This subject is at the center of chapter two, in which we open up to themes belonging to the history of the book: we have shown the importance that such assignments had in the business of the printers. A third section is devoted to the characteristics that the typographical “gride” assumed over the years. In this sense, the material aspects of the documents have been studied, considering them in relation to the social functions they had to perform. We have also highlighted the roles that languages other than the vernacular, especially Latin and Castilian, played within these writings. From this perspective emerges the complexity of the Milanese linguistic landscape and the political importance that languages other than the vernacular could assume in the 16th century. Lastly, we gave an account of the plural life of these documents. To begin, we emphasized the spaces that were maintained by manuscript production even in the mid-sixteenth century. Then we pointed out the production processes that accompanied the realization of typographical documents. In this sense emerged the role that the agents of the chancery maintained in the production of printed material, we highlighted also the autonomy that pertained to the composers. Moreover we took into account the importance of the participation of different actors in the production phases, in terms of both tasks and cultural horizons. Finally, we have considered the value that the normative writings were able to express in contexts distant from those of their first diffusion.