Produzione e strategie di diffusione di testi normativi nella Milano del Cinquecento: un caso di studio

This contribution focuses on the relationship that was built in 16th-century Milan between the printing press and texts of a normative nature. After having briefly considered the existing contributions on the subject, we move on to examine a specific aspect of the relationship, namely the transition of one such measure through three different forms of textuality: in handwritten form, as a printed broadsheet and finally as it was included in a collection of laws. The analysis of the documents clearly illustrates the evolution of the standard or norm, which undergoes changes both at the linguistic level and from the point of view of the organization of the text. The comparison therefore leads us to consider the importance of the strategy for disseminating standards when they are produced. More generally, the desire of the institutions producing these measures to maintain control over their textual presentation is clear and shows that the authorities were not willing to leave the narration of political discourse to chance or to the way printers might present it.