Sixteenth Century Quote of the Week

"This is what the printing presses do: they corrupt susceptible hearts. The silly asses do not see this, and brutes rejoice in the fraudulent title of teachers, exalting themselves with a song like this (be so good as to listen): 'O good citizen, rejoice: your city is well stuffed with books. For a small sum, men turn themselves into doctors in three years. Let thanks be rendered to the printers!' Any uncultured person without Latin bawls these things."

Filippo de Strata (c. 1473), Italian Benedictine

Polemic against Printing

translated by Shelagh Grier, 1986

Quoted in The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree (2010)