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By analysing some letters sent in 1522 by the agent Bernardo d'Asola to the Venetian publisher and bookseller Giovanni Bartolomeo Gabiano, the article aims to reconstruct ways of organising book distribution at the Recanati and Lanciano fairs. The trade fairs, as evidenced by the letters, are particularly unfortunate because of the plague that affected various areas of Italy in 1522. An edition of Bernardo's significant letter of 17 October 1522 sent from Recanati follows the text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a summary of the conceptual framework within which a study of book prices should take place and the research issues, as well as the methodological problems, which need to be addressed. Although the nature of books as semiindustrial goods puts them in a different class of product as seen from the point of view of a pre-industrial economy, the broad categories of supply and demand have been used to identify a series of factors giving rise to specific research questions which need input from various aspects of economic historical analysis. The history of the book is placed in relation to some classic topics of economic history, in an attempt to put the book trade and the prices of books in the context of a broader historiographical debate. Among available sources for early modern book prices, the inventory of the book shop of Bernardo Giunti (Department of Special Collections, UCLA, Collection 170/622) is evidence of the thriving book market in Venice of the period. The almost 12,000 entries included in the list of books for sale reflect the purposes and aims of the firm. The structure of this document is somewhat complex as it was in continual use for more than twenty years. Over this period of time, it appears to have become not merely a catalogue or finding-list of books for the use of the firm's clerks, but also an important tool for the management of the shop and its stock. Almost every title is priced, making this inventory one of the most extensive and significant sources for the study of book prices in early modern Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]