Printing the Event: The Press as Mass Medium in Italy and Germany in the First Age of Print

Printing the Event explores the relationship between events and the printing press from its advent around 1450 to ca. 1515. Beginning with the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the most diverse events were accompanied (and recorded) by printed and illustrated material. These ranged from calendars, papal bulls, indulgences and proclamations to publications of diplomatic writings, meetings and festivities. Information on natural disasters, miraculous phenomena, prognostications, pamphlets, war and pilgrimages were printed as well, often in the form of broadsides and pamphlets, some of which were illustrated with woodcuts. This volume explores how printed materials functioned as media, how they shaped the way events were perceived and interpreted, whether they gave meaning or distorted it, how they steered the course of events, and how the news market changed printing itself.

Stefano Cassini, Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy; Tobias Daniels, LMU, Munich, Germany; Sandra Toffolo, ISIG, Trento, Italy.