Around 1450 Johannes Gutenberg began to change the literary culture of Europe by using movable type to print books. In 1466 Cicero’s De officiis became the first classical text to be so printed. In 1472 Catullus was printed for the first time by Vindelinus de Spira in Venice. Before the invention of printing, books could circulate only if they were manu scripti (‘copied by hand’). Catullus lived at a time when for the vast majority of literary works these copies were made on rolls of papyrus, to which and to other materials for writing he refers quite often.

For a work of classical literature to be read in modern times, at least one manuscript copy had to survive until printing brought about more widespread dissemination. This survival depended, so to speak, on the text’s being able to leap over several hurdles.