Bologna book trade between '500 and '600: the Ulisse Aldrovandi's booksellers

Abstract

Bologna is an expanding market for the book trade in the second half of the XVI century. The library of the naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) is one of the most important in the city, both the numberof volumes and variety of interests. Relations between Aldrovandi and some leading figures of the Bologna book trade are witnessed by the scientist’s handwritten notes, which are kept at the University Library of Bologna. Three large commercial types were identified within which to place the activities of some of these figures. They were examined specific cases: Giovanni Alessi and Jerome Tamburini, as representatives of Bolognese branch of Venetian companies; families Sopranini, Mascheroni, Bernia, example of a well-entrenched dynasties booksellers publishers in the real city; Gaspare Bindoni and Simone Parlasca, not of Bologna, characterized by ambitions and activities, both commercial and editorial. The archive documentation allows the reconstruction of family and professional life of the examined figures, highlighting plots and bonds of a highly endogamous environment. In the text are inserted some family trees, a comparative table with the estimate of capital of books in different Bologna workshops, between 1543 and 1620, and a plant that shows the concentration of booksellers and printers in a particular area of the city, around the monastery St. Prokulus.