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Libraries & Culture 38.3 (2003) 273-274



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Mercaderes e impresores de libros en la Salamanca del siglo XVI. By Marta de la Mano González. Acta Salmanticensia, Estudios Históricos & Geográficos, 106. Salamanca, Spain: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 1998. 268 pp. PTA 3.300. ISBN 84-7481-898-2.

This book, along with Clive Griffin's The Crombergers of Seville (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), is among the most informative and insightful studies of the early printing industry in Iberia. Like Griffin, Marta de la Mano González grounds her analysis in a wealth of carefully presented detail. The first of two parts comprises four chapters that scrutinize the workings and influence of the printing business of Juan de Junta and Alejandro de Cánova, operating between 1514 and 1552. The second part examines the operations of the Compañía de Libreros de Salamanca (Salamancan Publishers Company) between 1530 and 1534.

The first chapter of part 1 describes the arrival in Salamanca of Junta and Cánova, sent out from the home office in Venice. We learn of the complexity and difficulty of establishing a printing business in sixteenth-century Castile, which involves many problems familiar to all entrepreneurs: the construction of production facilities, the establishment of local contacts, the setting up of channels of distribution, and so on. Chapters 2 and 3 depict the linking of the personal and the professional, describing the marriages of Juan de Junta and Alejandro de Cánova to local women who belong to families engaged in the printing industry in Burgos and Salamanca. In chapter 3 Mano González recounts the long period (1538-52) when Cánova was the sole proprietor of his own printing house. The concluding chapter of part 1 narrates the deteriorating relationship between the families of Junta and Cánova. [End Page 273]

The second part of Mano González's inquiry, focusing on the Compañía de Libreros de Salamanca, first profiles, in chapter 5, the members of the company, beginning with Cánova and Junta. The sixth chapter discusses in considerable detail the objectives, methods, and internal organization of the company. The next chapter is devoted to a meticulous description of the company's operations, including accounting personnel and procedures, production equipment and techniques, management practices, and investment patterns.

The book's eighth chapter analyzes the company's performance under the management of Gaspar Treschel. This segment of the account addresses aspects of the enterprise such as the initial purchase, the complications of shipping and distribution, the problems involved with the maintenance of physical plant and equipment, and the technical details of printing production.

The ninth chapter succinctly chronicles the establishment of printing shops in Medina del Campo and Salamanca under the supervision and subsequent management of various executives and administrators. In these two chapters, the precarious intricacies of factory location and management are examined with informative precision. Also delineated are the crises and complications that culminated in the collapse of a printing business in the economic and commercial environment of golden age Spain. The latter topic is highlighted in the book's concluding chapter, in which Mano González rehearses the particulars involved in the dissolution of the company in 1534. Fluctuations in the cost of primary production materials as well as instability in finance and marketing costs within both the book trade business specifically and commerce generally are shown to contribute to the company's increasingly troublesome performance in the final period leading to its dissolution.

The book will interest several areas of scholarship. The core audience will be those who investigate the history of the Spanish printing business. Indeed, the author's analysis of the attractions and risks of entrepreneurship in what was, in that era, a new and risky technology sector (her chapter 6, detailing the various steps in acquiring capital, drawing up a business plan, and so on, is a particularly illuminating example) amply supports comparison of that early conjuncture of modern capitalism with such recent episodes as the dotcom expansion and retreat. In addition, the book substantially contributes to...

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