Della Prima Promulgazione de'Libri in Firenze, Lezione Istorica

4to. 235 x 170 mm., [9 ¼ x 6 ¾ inches].  viii, 16 pp.  Later colored paper wrappers. Book label of Tammaro De Marinis. 

Manni (1690-1778), a noted historian of printing and literature, was the son of a Florentine typesetter, whose interest in the history of printing was fostered by his familiarity with the printing trade.  His scholarship was recognized by his contemporaries, and he was elected to the Accademia della Crusca, the leading academy in Florence, and became the director of the Biblioteca Strozzi.  In addition to his numerous essays on printing and Florentine history, he was a serious scholar of the writing of Boccaccio and published his most important work, Istoria del Decamerone in 1742 to critical acclaim. 

This rare essay on the first printer in Florence, was part of a phenomena taking place all over Italy by antiquarians searching through archives for documentation on the origins of printing in Italy.  It is an example of the development in scholarship that sought to establish methods and techniques for using local archives and repositories of government documents as sources for fact based research.  In this case Manni not only used the publications of Bernardo Cennini as documents for establishing precedence, but also contracts and other government documents that survived in the archives in Florence.  Subsequent research by Roberti Ridolfi in the 20th century using newly found documents  suggest other possible printers may have preceded Cennini and therefor the question remains open as to who was the first printer in Florence. 

Ottino and Fumagalli, Bibliotheca Bibliographica Italica, no. 267.  See Ridolfi, "Nuovi contribute all storia della stampi nel secolo XV" published in La Bibliofila (1954).  Laterza III, p. 480. Giuseppe Crimi, "Manni, Domenico Maria", Dizionario  Biographico degli Italiani, Volume 69.

OCLC cites copies at Penn, Yale, Amherst, Harvard and Illinois.  Not cited in the Library of Congress.