Panfilo Castaldi (c. 1398 – c. 1490) was an Italian physician and "master of the art of printing", to whom local tradition attributes the invention of

moveable type Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation ...

. He was born in

Feltre Feltre (; ) is a town and ''comune'' of the province of Belluno in Veneto, northern Italy. A hill town in the southern reaches of the province, it is located on the Stizzon River, about from its junction with the Piave, and southwest from Bell ...

but spent most of his life working in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

. The story as it has circulated through the centuries in Feltre is that Castaldi was given examples of early

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

block printing Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper. Each page or image is creat ...

Marco Polo Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...

, with which he experimented, eventually producing modern type. The story was largely unknown outside of

Lombardy The Lombardy Region (; ) is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in northern Italy and has a population of about 10 million people, constituting more than one-sixth of Italy's population. Lombardy is ...

until it was reported in the 19th century by Robert Curzon, Baron Zouche, a diplomat. As Curzon tells it, Castaldi began with glass stamps made at

Murano Murano is a series of islands linked by bridges in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It lies about north of Venice and measures about across with a population of just over 5,000 (2004 figures). It is famous for its glass making. It was o ...

and eventually developed wooden printing blocks which he used in a printing press in

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

in 1426. This would have been several years before

Johann Gutenberg Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg ( – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and craftsman who invented the movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's invention of the printing ...

's first experiments with metal type in the early 1430s. Curzon stresses the connection to Marco Polo, arguing that Castaldi's (undated) early work closely resembles Chinese printing, and also stresses Gutenberg's acquaintance with Venetian printing, thus suggesting that European printing did not emerge distinctly from the Chinese analogues but in imitation (a frequently debated question in any case). Since no more recent scholarship has suggested such an early date for Castaldi's printing, any relationship between Castaldi and Marco Polo, or any connection between Gutenberg and Northern Italy, the story has never received much credit outside of Feltre. In that city, however, it still attracts a fair amount of attention (the statue of Castaldi still stands) and was brought up once again on the occasion of Castaldi's sexcentennial in 1998; in a proposal for a municipal bill recognizing Castaldi, he was referred to as "il primo inventore dei caratteri mobili per la stampa" ("the first inventor of moveable type for printing"). What is clear is that by the 1470s Castaldi was a successful printer; there is a record of a print run of 300 copies of a

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

epistle An epistle (; ) is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part of the scribal-school writing curriculum. The ...

in 1471.Richardson, Brian. ''Printing, Writers and Readers in Renaissance Italy'' (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 30. ''Panfilo Castaldi'' is the imprint of a 19th and 20th-century printing house in Feltre.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castaldi, Panfilo 1390s births 1490s deaths People from Feltre Italian printers Printers of incunabula 15th-century Italian physicians 15th-century Italian businesspeople