Redundant Presses and Recycled Woodcuts: The Journey of Printing Materials from London to Constantinople in the Seventeenth Century
T article investigates how Nicodemos Metaxas, a priestmonk from the Ionian island of Cephalonia, acquired the necessary skills and experience in typography to run a printing house during a four year London sojourn in the first half of the seventeenth century. When Metaxas subsequently moved to Constantinople in 1627 to print books for the use of the Greek speaking Orthodox population, he brought with him a printing press, two sets of Greek fonts, a small collection of woodcuts, several reams of paper, and two skilled workmen. The article aims to ascertain the provenance of these materials and pinpoint their use prior to and in the aftermath of their transfer to Constantinople. In doing so, the article also proposes to draw a vivid picture of how a newly arrived alien with an aspiration to master the art of printing and to publish foreign language manuscripts would have fared among the city's master printers, paper merchants, booksellers, and other established members of the book trade. Julian R. Roberts and Evro Layton first identified Metaxas as the printer of a number of Greek books published in London during the 1620s. As Roberts, Layton, and later Letterio Augliera established, Metaxas, a Greek of noble Byzantine lineage, began his printing career
The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America