L'autore e la riflessione sul mercato del libro nel Settecento

How do 18th-century Italian authors see the publishing market? 18th-century works that deal with the problems of the bookmaking industry hardly ever speak of the book market. However, some authors seem to sense an expansion of readership and a cultural reawakening in Italy as well. Actually, there is plenty of evidence of an increasing number of books and papers becoming available in the Italian cities. Of course, the birth of a lay censorship, disjoined from the ecclesial one, remarkably boosted the publishing industry, the spreading of books and the growth in readership, as shown by several studies and as argued from the vast selection of books that booksellers-publishers showcase in their catalogues, which were not only full of books printed in Italy but also of all the latest releases from across the Alps, including forbidden, philosophical and fictional genres, especially novels. It was, however, a fairly slow process, as it struggled to overcome the influences of the long counter-reformist season that for over two centuries had wrapped a shade of disapproval around vernacular books and the possession, even more than the reading, thereof, which had extremely negative consequences on the lower social classes’ access to reading.