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The EMoBookTrade project, funded by the European Research Council and directed by Angela Nuovo, has developed a database on book prices (ca. 1530-1630) and book privileges (Venice, 1469 to 1603). This web application shows that digital humanities can play an innovative role in historical research at the same time respecting traditional scientific methods and the needs of ground-breaking inter-disciplinary research. Indeed, the EMoBookTrade DB takes into account both the representation of different kinds of sources and the processing of data deriving from them. Therefore, thanks to a rigorously designed conceptual model, the front end allows for a simple and straightforward source and data representation together with a complex search engine, the results of which can be downloaded in a CSV format suitable for statistical analyses. This article also aims to propose an ontology of price setting and privilege grants, considered as events concerned with the history of the book and the economic history.

Printed advertisements and lists of books for sales were used by publishers and booksellers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively to promote and increase the sale of books in distant markets. This article proposes an overall interpretation of the uses of these catalogues in the trade in books, the purposes they were designed to fulfil, and the reading public(s) they aimed to reach. Specific attention is paid to the book prices which are found in about 30% of the surviving printed catalogues. These represent a reliable testimony to the pricing policies some of the most important publishing firms, and the segments of the market they intended to serve. The catalogues are therefore among the main sources for our understanding of the mechanisms of the early modern book trade and its economic structure. Printed advertisements and lists of books for sales were used by publishers and booksellers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively to promote and increase the sale of books in distant markets. This article proposes an overall interpretation of the uses of these catalogues in the trade in books, the purposes they were designed to fulfil, and the reading public(s) they aimed to reach. Specific attention is paid to the book prices which are found in about 30% of the surviving printed catalogues. These represent a reliable testimony to the pricing policies some of the most important publishing firms, and the segments of the market they intended to serve. The catalogues are therefore among the main sources for our understanding of the mechanisms of the early modern book trade and its economic structure.

A dispetto della sua recente fondazione, la collezione Ahmanson-Murphy della University of California Los Angeles è la più ricca di edizioni manuziane fuori dall’Europa, e una delle più vaste del mondo.L'articolo ricostruisce le fasi della sua formazione e catalogazione, inquadrandola nel contesto delle maggiori collezioni di libri antichi presenti a Los Angeles. Franklin D. Murphy (1916-1994), sesto Chancellor di UCLA, spicca come il vero motore di questa grande impresa culturale. Despite its recent foundation, the Ahmanson-Murphy collection at the University of California Los Angeles counts the highest number of Aldine books outside Europe, and it is one of the richest collections in the world. This paper retraces the steps of its development and cataloguing, placing the collection among the main rare books collections in Los Angeles. Franklin D. Murphy (1916-1994), who was the sixth chancellor at UCLA, emerges at the real promoter of this great cultural venture.