Pietro Perna (1519 – 16 August 1582) was an Italian printer, the leading printer of Late

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

, the Erasmian crossroads between Italian Renaissance humanism and the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

. His books promoted the Italian heretical thinkers at the origins of

Socinianism Socinianism ( ) is a Nontrinitarian Christian belief system developed and co-founded during the Protestant Reformation by the Italian Renaissance humanists and theologians Lelio Sozzini and Fausto Sozzini, uncle and nephew, respectively. ...

and the theory of Tolerance. He was a major publisher of Protestant historians like

Flacius Illyricus Matthias Flacius Illyricus (Latin; ) or Francovich () (3 March 1520 – 11 March 1575) was a Lutheran reformer from Istria, present-day Croatia. He was notable as a theologian, sometimes dissenting strongly with his fellow Lutherans, and as a sch ...

and

David Chytraeus David Chytraeus or Chyträus (26 February 1530 – 25 June 1600) was a German Lutheran theologian, reformer and historian. He was a disciple of Philip Melancthon. He was born at Ingelfingen. His real surname was Kochhafe, which in Classical Gr ...

and promoted the ars historica treatises of the period, notably the 18 ''authores de historia'' in Artis Historicae Penus (1579). A native of Villa Basilica, in the

Republic of Lucca The Republic of Lucca () was a medieval and early modern state that was centered on the Italian city of Lucca in Tuscany, which lasted from 1160 to 1805. Its territory extended beyond the city of Lucca, reaching the surrounding countryside in th ...

, and a Dominican, he arrived in Basel in 1544 as a disciple of the reformer

Pietro Martire Vermigli Peter Martyr Vermigli (; 8 September 149912 November 1562) was an Italian-born Reformed theologian. His early work as a reformer in Catholic Italy and his decision to flee for Protestant northern Europe influenced some other Italians to convert ...

and with the help of

Pietro Carnesecchi Pietro Carnesecchi (24 December 1508 – 1 October 1567) was an Italian humanist. Biography Born in Florence, he was the son of a da Andrea Carnesecchi, a merchant who under the patronage of the Medici, and especially of Giulio de' Medici ...

. As a printer he started as an assistant to the renowned Johannes Oporinus and set up a press of his own in 1558. As a bookseller and apprentice printer he established a network of Italian connections that helped him act as a go between and publisher of Italian reformed thinkers and writers, such as Vermigli,

Pier Paolo Vergerio Pier Paolo Vergerio ( 1498 – 4 October 1565), the Younger, was an Italian papal nuncio and later Protestant reformer. Life He was born at Capodistria (Koper), Istria, then part of the Venetian Republic and studied jurisprudence in Padua, ...

Jacopo Aconcio Jacopo Aconcio () was an Italian jurist, theologian, philosopher and engineer. He is now known for his contribution to the history of religious toleration. Life Aconcio was born around 1520 in Trento, Italy, or possibly the nearby town of Oss ...

Bernardino Ochino Bernardino Ochino (1487–1564) was an Italian, who was raised a Roman Catholic and later turned to Protestantism and became a Protestant reformer. Biography Bernardino Ochino was born in Siena, the son of the barber Domenico Ochino, and at the ...

Lelio Sozzini Lelio Francesco Maria Sozzini (; 29 January 1525 – 4 May 1562), often known in English by his Latinized name Laelius Socinus ( ), was an Italian Renaissance humanist and theologian, and, alongside his nephew Fausto Sozzini, founder of the Non ...

Sebastian Castellio Sebastian Castellio (also Sébastien Châteillon, Châtaillon, Castellión, and Castello; 1515 – 29 December 1563) was a French preacher and theologian; and one of the first Reformed Christian proponents of religious toleration, freedom of ...

Celio Secondo Curione Celio Secondo Curione (1 May 1503, in Cirié – 24 November 1569, in Basel) (usual Latin form Caelius Secundus Curio) was an Italian Renaissance humanism, humanist, grammarian, editor and historian, who exercised a considerable influence upon th ...

, etc. He published the

first edition The bibliographical definition of an edition is all copies of a book printed from substantially the same setting of type, including all minor typographical variants. First edition According to the definition of ''edition'' above, a book pr ...

(

editio princeps In Textual scholarship, textual and classical scholarship, the ''editio princeps'' (plural: ''editiones principes'') of a work is the first printed edition of the work, that previously had existed only in manuscripts. These had to be copied by han ...

) of the original Greek text of the ''

Enneads The ''Enneads'' (; ), fully ''The Six Enneads'', is the collection of writings of the philosopher Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry (270). Plotinus was a student of Ammonius Saccas, and together they were founders of Neopla ...

'' of

Plotinus Plotinus (; , ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a Greek Platonist philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the self-taught philosopher Ammonius ...

. He produced important editions of Machiavelli and Bodin,

Guicciardini The House of Guicciardini () is an old and important Florentine family, which originated from Mugello as rich landowners and moved to Florence in the 14th century. When Francesco Guicciardini (1851–1915) married Princess Luisa Strozzi-Majorc ...

and

Lodovico Castelvetro Lodovico Castelvetro (23 March 1556) was an important figure in the development of neo-classicism, especially in drama. It was his reading of Aristotle that led to a widespread adoption of a tight version of the Three Unities, as a dramatic stan ...

. He published works of

Paracelsus Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. H ...

and various Paracelsians but also served as the chief printer of Paracelsus's leading critic

Thomas Erastus Thomas Erastus (original surname Lüber, Lieber, or Liebler; 7 September 152431 December 1583) was a Swiss physician and Calvinist theologian. He wrote 100 theses (later reduced to 75) in which he argued that the sins committed by Christians shou ...

. In 1570 Perna sent the artist

Tobias Stimmer Tobias Stimmer (7 April 1539 – 4 January 1584In the old style.) was a Switzerland, Swiss painter and illustrator. His most famous work is the paintings on the Strasbourg astronomical clock. Biography He was born in Schaffhausen, and was a ...

to Como to copy the famous collection of historical portraits in the Giovio Collection.Perini, p. 205 Stimmer's distinctive woodcuts decorate numerous editions of

Paolo Giovio Paolo Giovio (also spelled ''Paulo Jovio''; Latin: ''Paulus Jovius''; 19 April 1483 – 11 December 1552) was an Italian physician, historian, biographer, and prelate. Early life Little is known about Giovio's youth. He was a native of Co ...

, brought out by Perna and Heinrich Petri. The Basel doctor and polymath

Theodor Zwinger Theodor Zwinger the Elder (2 August 1533 – 10 March 1588) was a Swiss physician and Renaissance humanist scholar. He made significant contributions to the emerging genres of reference and travel literature. He was the first distinguished repre ...

was his close collaborator. Perna died of the plague and was buried in St. Peter's Church.

References

Bibliography

*Peter G. Bietenholz, (1959) ''Der italienische Humanismus und die Blutezeit des Buchdrucks in Basel.'' Die Basler Drucke italianischer Autoren von 1530 bis zum Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts, Basel-Stuttgart, Helbig & Lichtenhahn. *Antonio Rotondò, (1974) Pietro Perna e la vita culturale e religiosa di Basilea fra il 1570 e il 1580, in ''Studi e ricerche di storia ereticale italiana del Cinquecento'', Turin, Giappichelli. *Perini, Leandro, (2002) ''La vita e i tempi di Pietro Perna'', Rome, Edizioni di storia, provides a numbered catalogue of the 430 editions printed by Perna between 1549 and 1582. *''Oxford Companion to the Book'' (2010), ''sub voce''.

External links

Griechischer Geist aus Basler Pressen
1519 births 1582 deaths Businesspeople from Lucca Italian printers 16th-century Italian businesspeople Swiss book publishers (people) 16th-century deaths from plague (disease) Italian Dominicans People from Villa Basilica {{italy-business-bio-stub