On Agriculture (De Re Rustica)

To all and singular, to whom these present letters of ours shall come, greeting and apostolic blessing. Since our beloved son Aldus Manutius Pius Romanus, who for so many years has not ceased to serve the cause of literature with all his might, has incurred great expenses and sustained great labors in that field—especially in the careful correction and printing of Greek and Latin books, and those indeed with type faces so learnedly and elegantly cut in steel that they appear to have been written by a pen—he fears that this industry and labor of his might bring profit to others who could take an example from them, to his own great loss. He has therefore humbly petitioned us that we might deign to add our pastoral care to this matter.

We, therefore, who have always fostered and embraced those who are studious of literature and all good arts as much as it has been in our power, moved by such supplications, desire that the talents of men be increasingly excited daily to seek out or discover more honest and useful uses of things, and that books of both languages may be sent into the hands of scholars far more diligently and accurately corrected. Desiring to act conveniently and kindly toward Aldus himself, whose learning, upright character, and wonderful diligence we have found to be sufficiently known and perceived, we expressly inhibit all and singular, to whose notice these presents shall come, under penalty of excommunication of late sentence—and for those living in our cities, lands, and places of the Holy Roman Church, and those subject to us and said Church mediately or immediately, furthermore under penalty of five hundred gold ducats and the loss of all books which they may have printed, to be applied to our apostolic chamber—that for the space of fifteen years from the time of any book, whether Greek or Latin, which Aldus himself has previously taken care to print, and shall hereafter take care to print with those characters which he himself first invented or published, and which he has used until now, or which he may invent in the future, they shall not presume in any way to print or cause to be printed, or to imitate and adulterate by assimilation those characters which they call cursive or chancery, or to cause this to be done by others, or to strike off such books with such forms, or to sell them once struck off. We also wish that those in whose possession such books are found for sale shall incur those same penalties. We decree nonetheless, by apostolic authority and without further declaration, that all who shall have dared to act against this our inhibition are to be held immediately subject to the aforementioned sentence of excommunication. From our own subjects, and those of the Holy Roman Church, beyond the penalty of such excommunication to be incurred by them, we also decree the pecuniary penalty and the loss of all books, as aforesaid, to our chamber...