Bibliografia e Risorgimento: la rivendicazione italiana dell'invenzione della stampa

After recolling Italy's role in relation to the early development of the German invention of printing, and after recalling how Italian scholars between the 18th and 19th century were informed about GUtenberg studies and the origins of the art of printing, the case of Panfilo Castaldi is addressed. The 'myth' concerning the claim of the creation of printing to him arore from a series of information that arose among the historiographers of his hometown, Feltre, now in the province of Belluno in northern Veneto. Between nationalist rhetoric of polemics against the German-speaking world that made the German states and the Austrian Empire one and the same (we are in the years of the birth of the Kingdom of Italy) and the professional vindication of the Italian printers of the time, the Italian 19th century is all about the exaltation of this figure. Only at the beginning of the 20th century was the "Castaldi question" definitively set aside. At the same time, however, new archival documents not only confirmed the reality of the historical figure of Castaldi, but testified to his direct economic involvement in the beginnings of the art of printing in Milan.