ABSTRACT
The growing printing industry and the frequent publication of Italian books in early modern England are the subject of Mario Domenichelli’s second chapter. After learning the rudiments of his art during a long stay in Florence, John Wolfe became the most prolific printer of Italian books in early modern London, included in the index librorum prohibitorum. He published in rapid succession both Machiavelli’s and Aretino’s major works with false colophons, with Palermo or other Italian locations given as the place of publication. The colophon forgery was used by another printer for the publication of Giordano Bruno’s English works, written during his two-year stay in London and Oxford. Translations of Italian books were also published and became bestsellers, considered tools for self-fashioning, teaching important skills in all aspects of collective life, as Castiglione’s Libro del Cortegiano and Machiavelli’s Il Principe. Several handbooks on rhetoric and the art of delivering speeches were also very fashionable and shared their popularity with the copious production of Italian books on sword-fencing and horse-riding.
