Tipofilologia. Rivista internazionale di studi filologici e linguistici sui testi a stampa. 1. 2008

The study of printed literary works relies on philological methods which are today largely independent of those used for manuscript texts, employing specific instruments to investigate the individual problems of the tradition, transmission and reception of literary works in print in a European context. "Tipofilologia" addresses a field that has recently seen major improvements and acquisitions, but needs nonetheless important verifications on individual issues and methods. Once the printed text's authority and philological dignity have been established in the context of its circulation, cultural impact, and literary fortune among readers who may be more or less 'creative' (as commentators and imitators should be included), typophilological research focuses on philology and textual criticism, and aims at assessing the textual status of the printed testimony and establishing its peculiarities (authorial intervention, textual variants, relations with manuscript sources, fortune of the received text), while the techniques of textual and descriptive bibliography allow the classification and interpretation of variants witnessed by individual copies (casual interventions and errors made by printers, authorial interventions, contributions made by editors and revisors). Anglo-Saxon philology, developed in the United Kingdom, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, has produced editions of English Renaissance books based on modern philological methods, in particular the principles of textual bibliography. This new approach to philology, derived from traditional English bibliography, requires the collation of the largest number possible of copies of the edition(s) in question, in search of corrections introduced during the printing process, even by the author. The flourishing print culture of Italy, England, Spain and France in the Renaissance period could give European philology some interesting subjects of research. Linguistic texts of the Renaissance await modern scientific editions. Typophilology is the new approach of the modern editor of a text, where philology, historical linguistics and textual bibliography are connected to one another.