Le trasformazioni di un libro: Domenico Nani Mirabelli e la sua «Polyanthea». Auctor, Auctoritates, Bibliopolae

In 1503 the scholar Domenico Nani published in Savona the Polyanthea, an extensive compilation in Latin, Greek and Italian. It is an alphabetically organized repertoire of quotations from classics and from biblical and Christian writers (including Dante and Petrarch). Within a few years, the edition was repeated twice in Venice, and then in Basel, Paris and Lyon. Then, in 1514, Nani proposed a second edition of Savona cum additionibus, protected by a papal privilege. However, without this provision being particularly effective, the subsequent editions of Strasbourg and Lyon helped to spread the work in Europe. It was precisely the loss of the author’s control over his intellectual product that allowed the text to move quickly on the European market, dominated by the world of the great humanist printers of the time.