i FRANKFORT (1590) 63 



of the Wechels, famous printers of their day, in the 

 house of another of whom (Andre) Sidney had lived. 

 In the protocol-book of the council of Frankfort, under 

 the date July 2, 1590, a petition of Jordan us Brunus of 

 Nola is mentioned, in which he asks permission to stay 

 in the house of the printer Wechel. This, as the book 

 of the Burgomaster under the same date shows, was 

 roughly refused : " Soil man ime sein pitt abschlagen, 

 und sagen, das er sein pfennig anderswo verzehre " 

 " his petition is to be refused and he is to be told go 

 and spend his coin elsewhere." In spite of this refusal, 

 Wechel found Bruno lodging in the Carmelite Monas- 

 tery, where he stayed, working with his own hands at 

 the printing of his books, for some six months, until 

 December, perhaps, of that year. Frankfort was the 

 main centre of the book world in those days ; to its 

 half-yearly book-marts printers and sellers came from 

 all parts of Europe to see the new books of the world, 

 to dispose of their goods, to stock their houses. Among 

 others in this year came the booksellers Ciotto and 

 Bertano, who afterwards were witnesses before the 

 Inquisition, and who stayed in the monastery probably 

 in September of that year, where they met Bruno. In 

 the dedication of the De Minima ', of date February 13, 

 1591, Bruno's publishers wrote that "he had only the 

 last folium of the work to correct, when by an unfore- 

 seen chance he was hurried away, and could not put the 

 finishing hand upon it, as he had done on the rest of 

 the work : he wrote accordingly asking us to supply in 

 his name what by chance it had been denied him to 

 complete." The " unforeseen chance " may, as Sigwart 

 suggests, have been the final putting into effect of the 

 Council's refusal to allow him to stay in the town, which 

 may till then have remained a dead letter ; or it may 



