How Renaissance Scholars & Printers Decided On The Size Of Books (w/ Ann M. Blair)

Printing in early modern Europe made few technical constraints on the size of books, which could range from very large to small in format and in length. Commercial and cultural factors together determined the size of books in various genres. In particular, strong partnerships between learned authors and printers in the sixteenth century helped establish norms for the publication of books in Latin. Examples will include the publication patterns of the famous humanist Erasmus (d. 1536) with his Basel printers, and of the naturalist Conrad Gessner (d. 1565) in Zurich.

Ann M. Blair is Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor in the Department of History at Harvard University. Her publications include Too Much To Know : Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (2010); Information: A Historical Companion (2021) co-edited with Paul Duguid, Anja Goeing, and Anthony Grafton; and, in summer 2026, In the Scholar’s Workshop: Hidden Histories of Collaboration and Authorship.

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