The Renaissance Footprint: The Material Trace in Print Culture from Dürer to Spenser

Abstract

This article argues that Renaissance print culture appropriated the cultural meanings of the footprint. The potent analogy between the printing press and printing foot informed Reformation debates over Christ’s footprints as objects of devotion and subjects of representation. In sixteenth-century England a model for investigative reading informed by Erasmian humanism was developed in the print projects of George Gascoigne and Edmund Spenser. Experimentation with effects of the press and the material environment of the page culminated in extensive play upon the material and metaphorical sign of the printing foot in Spenser’s “Amoretti.”

Walking with Vigilance: Middleton's Edge in The Triumphs of Truth

“…Gordon's work emphasizes that exploring the foot's role in writing stresses 'the need for critics to engage with the complex interactions of visual, verbal, and physical elements in the dynamic interpretive environment of the early modern page'. 17 Heeding Gordon's call, we can observe the ways in which mayoral shows, particularly Middleton's, guide the reader through an embodied experience of the text that resuscitates the ephemeral performance. Stock suggests that his shows compel the mayor 'on the spot' to be cognizant of his position's responsibilities; how Middleton accomplishes this same feat with his readers, however, is by printing the peripatetic text.…”