TheAldine Press was theprinting office started byAldus Manutius in 1494 inVenice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics (Latin and Greek masterpieces, plus a few more modern works). The first book that was dated and printed under his name appeared in 1495.[1]
The Aldine Press is famous in the history oftypography, among other things, for the introduction ofitalics.[2] The press was the first to issue printed books in the smalloctavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and intended for portability and ease of reading.[1]: 82–84 According toCurt F. Bühler, the press issued 132 books during twenty years of activity under Aldus Manutius.[1] After Manutius' death in 1515, the press was continued by his wife Maria and her father Andrea Torresani (Andrea Torresano [Wikidata]), until Manutius' son Paulus (1512–1574) took over. His grandsonAldus Manutius the Younger then ran the firm until his death in 1597. Today, the antique books printed by the Aldine Press in Venice are referred to asAldines,[3] as are the letterforms and typefaces pioneered by the Aldine Press.[4]
The press enjoyed amonopoly of works printed in Greek in theRepublic of Venice, effectively giving it copyright protection. Protection outside the Republic was more problematic, however. The firm maintained an agency in Paris, but its commercial success was affected by many counterfeit editions, produced inLyon and elsewhere.[5]
Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Aldine Press, was originally a humanist scholar and a teacher. Manutius met Andrea Torresani, who had acquired publishing equipment from the widow ofNicholas Jenson. The ownership of the press was originally split in two, with one half belonging to Pier Francesco Barbarigo, the nephew ofAgostino Barbarigo, who was thedoge at the time, and the other half belonging to Torresani. Manutius owned one fifth of Torresani's share of the press. Manutius was mainly in charge of the scholarship and editing, leaving financial and operating concerns to Barbarigo and Torresani. In 1496, Manutius established his own location of the press in a building called theThermae in theSestiere di San Polo on the campo Sant'Agostin inVenice,[6] todaynumero civico (house number) 2343 San Polo on theCalle della Chiesa (Alley of the Church), now the location of the restaurantDue Colonne.[6] Though there are two commemorative plaques located on the buildingnumero civico 2311Rio Terà Secondo, historians regard them to be erroneously placed based on contemporaneous letters addressed to Manutius.[7][8][9][10] The first erroneous plaque had been placed by Abbot don Vincenzo Zenier in 1828.[6][11][7]
Manutius lived and worked in theThermae in order to produce published books from the Aldine Press. This was also the location of the "New Academy", where a group of Manutius' friends, associates, and editors came together to translate Greek and Latin texts.[10] In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Torresani.[1] Torresani and Manutius were already business partners, but the marriage combined the two partners' shares in the publishing business.[10] After the marriage, Manutius lived at Torresani's house.[10] Shrinking in popularity, in 1506 the Aldine Press was moved to Torresani's house in the parish of San Paternian. It was later demolished in 1873 and was covered by a bank building in the Venice square,Campo Manin.[10]
The press was started by Manutius due to a combination of his love of classics and the need for preservation of Hellenic studies. During its initial era, the press printed new copies ofPlato,Aristotle, and other Greek and Latin classics.[10]
The first edition of Plato's works (known as the Aldine edition) was dedicated toPope Leo X and included the poem ofMusurus and the life of Plato byDiogenes Laertius, which were also included in the first two editions of Plato's works printed inBasel.[12] The two Basel editions were introduced by a Latin preface written by the German humanistSimon Grynaeus, a scholar of Greek, who dedicated the work to the humanistThomas More.[12]
Manutius also printed dictionaries and grammars to help people interpret the books, used by scholars wanting to learn Greek, who would employ learned Greeks in order to teach them directly.[13] HistorianElizabeth Eisenstein claims that the fall ofConstantinople in 1453 had placed under threat the importance and survival of Greek scholarship, but that publications such as those by the Aldine Press secured it once more.Erasmus was one of the scholars learned in Greek with whom the Aldine Press partnered in order to provide accurately translated text.[13]: 221 The Aldine Press also expanded into modern languages, mainly Italian and French.[10]
Manutius eventually took on a project to improve upon the Humanistic font designs of Jenson's typefaces, hiringFrancesco Griffo to design and cut typefaces for his print editions of classical literature.[2]Humanistic fonts, based on the formal hand ofRenaissance humanist scribes and notaries, had been in development from the time movable print arrived in Italy, notably by the French printerNicolas Jenson in 1470.[2] Griffo developed his own further refinements of style, resulting in one of the earliestroman typefaces produced.
Adapting this admired and influential roman-faced font, Manutius and Griffo went on to produce a cursive variant, the first of what is now known asitalic type. The worditalic is derived from early Italian versions of italic faces, which were designed primarily in order to save on the cost of paper.[2] The Aldine Press first used italic type in a woodcut of Saint Catherine of Siena in 1500.[14] Their 1501 edition of Virgil'sOpera was the first book to be printed in italic type. The roman typeface and italic form created and pioneered by Manutius and Griffo were highly influential in typographic development.[2]
Beginning in 1505, Manutius produced plain texts in a portable form, using the termenchiridion, meaning "handbook" (later misnamed "pocketbook").[15] The octavo was the first version of the editio minor. Although these new, portable books were not cheap, the books of the Aldine Press did not force upon their buyers a substantial investment comparable to that of large volumes of text and commentary during this era. These books consisted on an edited text issued without commentary, printed in a typeface mimicking chancery script (the cursive handwriting of the humanist), produced in a small book which could sit comfortably in the hand.[15] The editio minor, in many ways, brought financial and logistical benefits to those interested in the classics. An individual no longer had to go to the book, but rather the book came along with them.[16]
In 1501, Aldus used as his publisher's device the image of adolphin wrapped around ananchor.[15] "The dolphin and anchor device owed its origins most immediately toPietro Bembo. Aldus told Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the RomanEmperor Vespasian bearing an image of this device.[17] The image of the dolphin and anchor on the coin came with the saying "Festina Lente", meaning "make haste slowly." This would later become the motto for the Aldine Press.[10]
Manutius died on February 6, 1515. Following his death, the firm was run by Torresani and his daughter Maria, the widow of Manutius. The name of the press was changed in 1508 to "In the House of Aldus and Andrea Torresano," and kept this name until 1529. In 1533,Paulus Manutius managed the firm, starting it up again and changing its name to "Heirs of Aldus and Andrea Torresano". In 1539, the imprint changed to "Sons of Aldo Manuzio". In 1567,Aldus Manutius the Younger (grandson of Aldus Manutius) took over and maintained the business until his death.[5]
A partial list of publications from the Aldine Press, cited fromAldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze.[18]
Works published from the Greeks. Manutius printed thirtyeditiones principes of Greek texts, allowing these texts to escape the fragility of the manuscript tradition.
Latin works
Libelli Portatiles
The most nearly complete collection of Aldine editions ever brought together was originally housed in theAlthorp library of the2nd Earl Spencer, and is now in theJohn Rylands Library,Manchester.[19]
In North America, the most substantial Aldine holdings can be found in the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at theUniversity of California, Los Angeles,[20] theHarry Ransom Center atUniversity of Texas at Austin,[21] and theHarold B. Lee Library atBrigham Young University.[22]
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