The craft of the books in the Late Renaissance. Edition and comment of Hugo Blotius’ Consilium to Rudolf II. (1579)

Abstract

The article attempts to reconstruct the content and the context of a Consilium (advice) addressed from the Imperial librarian in Vienna, Hugo Blotius, to the Em­peror of the Holy Roman Empire Rudolf II in 1579. In the text the author points out at a number of morbi and possible treatments for the Imperial library. In so doing, he discusses some of the crucial issues related to the management of late Renais­sance libraries, such as the increase of the collections, and the professionalization of the librarians. Through the comparison with other advices written by librarians and scholars in the same period, the article tries to contextualise some of Blotius’ ideas, in order to propose some more general conclusions about the organisation of libraries in a time of change for the culture of books, such as the 16th century. In the Appendix, the edition of the manuscript, preserved in Vienna in the Section of Manuscripts and Old prints of the Austrian National library, is proposed, thanks to the contribution of Dr. Christian Gastgber.