In sixteenth-century Europe the business of printing created small intellectual communities that had the ability to manage the exigencies of the market and those of culture. In this process of continual negotiation between the interests of publishers, authors, and readers, how did men of letters lend their erudition to the service of printing? How were they able to elicit the interest of printers in publishing their works? And, above all, to what extent did their collaboration with printers impact their careers? This brief investigation analyzes the work of polymaths such as Johann Heynlin, Conrad Leontorius, Konrad Pellikan, Sebastian Brant, Jacob Wimpfeling, and Johann Reuchlin—who, acting as translators, proofreaders, and literary and typographical experts, collaborated with the Basel printer Johann Amerbach—in order to shed light on the fruitful reciprocity of printing and erudition that shaped the careers of early modern scholars and erudites. Dans l’Europe du XVIe siècle, l’imprimerie a créé de petites communautés d’intellectuels en mesure de tenir compte aussi bien des exigences culturelles que de celles du marché. À travers la continuelle négociation entre les intérêts des éditeurs, des auteurs et des lecteurs, comment ces hommes de lettre ont-ils mis leur érudition au service de l’imprimerie ? Comment arrivaient-ils à intéresser les éditeurs à leur travail ? Et surtout, dans quelle mesure leur collaboration avec ces éditeurs a-t-elle influencé leur carrière ? Cette brève enquête analyse le travail de savants polymathes tels que Johann Heynlin, Conrad Leontorius, Konrad Pellikan, Sebastian Brant, Jacob Wimpfeling et Johann Reuchlin, qui ont travaillé en tant que traducteurs, correcteurs d’épreuves, et d’experts typographes et littéraires avec l’imprimeur bâlois Johann Amerbach. Elle met ainsi en lumière la collaboration fructueuse de l’imprimerie et de l’érudition et son impact sur la carrière des intellectuels et des érudits de cette époque.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Sebastiani, V., Ricketts, W., (2025), "Sixteenth-Century Polymaths in the Print and Publishing Business in Basel: An Intersection of Interests and Strategies (1472–1513)", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Sebastiani, Valentina; Ricketts, Wendell. "Sixteenth-Century Polymaths in the Print and Publishing Business in Basel: An Intersection of Interests and Strategies (1472–1513)." Renaissance and Reformation 39 (2): 2016. 9-26. DOI: 10.33137/rr.v39i2.26852. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.