Printing and Politics in Italian Humanism: Manuscript and Stop-Press Corrections in Poliziano’s "Coniurationis commentarium"

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the printing process of the editio princeps of Angelo Poliziano’s Coniurationis commentarium (Florence, 1478), the famous literary account of the Pazzi conspiracy written by one of the leading scholars of the Medici entourage. Following a thorough and systematic investigation of all the four extant copies, this case study reveals a complex stratification of typos, manuscript corrections and stop-press emendations, allowing us to gain a better insight into the printing practices and editorial strategies of Niccolò della Magna, one of the most important printers in Florence in the second half of the fifteenth century. His meticulous pre-publication procedures casts light on the political implications of the printing project of the Coniurationis commentarium in the intricate conflict between Florence and the foreign states involved in the plot.