BLADO, ANTONIO. - Celebrated 16th-century printer, b. in Lombardy (Asolo or Piadena?) in 1490, d. in Rome between 17 and 27 March 1567. He practiced his art in Rome, starting from about 1515: the first work known to have come from his presses is an edition of the Mirabilia Urbis Romae, dated 21 Nov. 1516. On the commission of Paul III he founded a Greek printing house, whose activity continued until about 1550. In 1549 he obtained appointment as printer to the Camera, offering the first example of a printing privilege for the official acts of an institution. In that capacity he published in 1557, by mandate of the Holy Office, the first Index of Prohibited Books of an official character, which was suppressed before publication; the second, of the following year, is also extremely rare. Even rarer (only one copy is known, in the Vatican Library) is an Index of the books censured by the theological faculty of Paris, which B. had already printed in 1549. Another unicum preserved in the Vatican Archives is a precious Instruction of the Inquisition on the Index of Paul IV (1559).

His fame is due above all to the publication of illustrated books, among which the Trattato di scentia d'arme, by C. Agrippa (quarto, 1553), with copper engravings of uncertain attribution (Stradano? School of Marcantonio Raimondi? School of Leonardo?), is of particular merit. Also very rare is the "editio princeps" of Machiavelli's Principe, which appeared in 1532.

Outside Rome he printed the Statuta sive constitutiones civitatis Reatae (Rieti 1549), and the Theologicarum institutionum compendium of Card. Dolera (Foligno 1562). He favored italic cursive types, and had as his device a crowned eagle turned to the left with a shield between its talons and, at the sides, beneath the spread wings, the initials A. B. Annibal Caro shadowed his figure in the character of the "Barbagriglia stampatore," publisher of Molza's Ficheide, in the comedy Gli Straccioni. His work was continued by his sons Bartolomeo, Stefano, Orazio and Paolo, until the last of these retired in 1593, retaining ownership of the stamperia camerale until 1609.

Bibliography7 works

BIBL.: D. Bernoni, Dei Torresani, B. e Ragazzoni, celebri stampatori a Venezia e a Roma nel XV e XVI sec., Milano 1890; G. Fumagalli - G. Belli, Catalogo delle edizioni romane di A. B. asolano ed eredi, fasc. 1 e 11 (gli unici usciti, comprendenti le opere pubblicate dal B. e figli, fino al 1573), Roma 1891; G. Fumagalli, A. B., tipografo romano, Milano (1893); E. Calvi, Per la storia del libro in Roma, Roma 1913; S. Vaccaro, Catalogo delle edizioni romane di A. B. asolano ed eredi, ivi 1942; A. Mercati, Nell'Urbe dalla fine di settembre 1337 al 21 gennaio 1338. Documenti seguiti da altre « Varia » dall'Archivio segreto Vaticano (Miscellanea Historiae Pontificiae, X), ivi 1945, cap. II, § 2, pp. 89-102; A. Campana, A. B. e Bartolomeo Platina, in Miscellanea bibliografica in memoria di don Tommaso Accuriti, a cura di L. Donati (Storia e letteratura, 15), ivi 1947, pp. 39-50.

Alessandro Pratesi

@incollection{ec2_blado_antonio, author = {Pratesi, Alessandro}, title = {Blado, antonio}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {1713--1714}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/blado-antonio} }

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Blado, Antonio

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