Aldus Pius Manutius (; it, Aldo Pio Manuzio; 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and
humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humani ...
who founded the
Aldine Press
The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, 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 dat ...
. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preservation of Greek manuscripts mark him as an innovative publisher of his age dedicated to the editions he produced. His ''enchiridia'', small portable books, revolutionized personal reading and are the predecessor of the modern
paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) book ...
.
Manutius wanted to produce
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
texts for his readers because he believed that works by
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
or
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
in their original Greek form were pure and unadulterated by translation. Before Manutius, publishers rarely printed volumes in Greek, mainly due to the complexity of providing a standardized Greek typeface. Manutius published rare manuscripts in their original Greek and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
forms. He commissioned the creation of typefaces in Greek and Latin resembling the humanist handwriting of his time; typefaces that are the first known precursor of
italic type
In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed tex ...
. As the Aldine Press grew in popularity, Manutius's innovations were quickly copied across Italy despite his efforts to prevent the piracy of Aldine editions.
Because of the Aldine Press's growing reputation for meticulous, accurate publications, Dutch philosopher
Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
sought out Manutius to publish his translations of ''
Iphigenia in Aulis
''Iphigenia in Aulis'' or ''Iphigenia at Aulis'' ( grc, Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Αὐλίδι, Īphigéneia en Aulídi; variously translated, including the Latin ''Iphigenia in Aulide'') is the last of the extant works by the playwright Euripide ...
''.
In his youth, Manutius studied in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
to become a humanist scholar. He was friends with
Giovanni Pico and tutored Pico's nephews, the lords of Carpi, Alberto and Leonello Pio. While a tutor, Manutius published two works for his pupils and their mother. In his late thirties or early forties, Manutius settled in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
to become a print publisher. He met Andrea Torresano in Venice and the two co-founded the Aldine Press.
Manutius is also known as "Aldus Manutius the Elder" to distinguish him from his grandson,
Aldus Manutius the Younger
Aldus Manutius, the Younger ( it, Aldo Manuzio il Giovane) (13 February 1547 — 28 October 1597) was the grandson of Aldus Manutius and son of Paulus Manutius. He was the last member of the Manuzio family to be active in the Aldine Press that his ...
.
Early life
![Bust of Aldo Manuzio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Bust_of_Aldo_Manuzio._Panteon_Veneto%3B_Istituto_Veneto_di_Scienze%2C_Lettere_ed_Arti.jpg)
Aldus Manutius was born close to Rome in
Bassiano
Bassiano (locally ''Vassiano'') is a municipality (Italian: ''comune'') in the Province of Latina in the Italian region Lazio, located about southeast of Rome and about northeast of Latina, Lazio, Latina. As of 31 December 2004, it had a populat ...
between 1449 and 1452. He grew up in a wealthy family during the
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
and in his youth was sent to Rome to become a
humanist scholar. In
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, he studied
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
under
Gaspare da Verona Gaspare (also ''Gaspero'', ''Gasperino'' and ''Gasparro'') is an Italian male given name, the literal translation of the English name Casper and Jasper (French Gaspard, Scandinavian Kasper and Jesper).
The name is rare in contemporary times, but ...
and attended lectures by
Domizio Calderini in the early 1470s. From 1475 to 1478, Manutius studied
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
in
Ferrara
Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...
with
Battista Guarino
Battista Guarino ( la, Baptista Guarinus; 1434–1503(?)) was the youngest son of Guarino da Verona. He was one of the most significant humanists of his time in northern Italy. Guarino was also an active teacher. He is the presumed author of the ba ...
as his teacher.
Most of Manutius's early life is rather unknown. According to
John Addington Symonds
John Addington Symonds, Jr. (; 5 October 1840 – 19 April 1893) was an English poet and literary critic. A cultural historian, he was known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as numerous biographies of writers and artists. Although m ...
, writing in the
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition, Manutius was granted citizenship of the town of Carpi on 8 March 1480 where he owned local property, and in 1482 he travelled to
Mirandola
Mirandola ( Mirandolese: ) is a city and ''comune'' of Emilia-Romagna, Italy, in the Province of Modena, northeast of the provincial capital by railway.
History
Mirandola originated as a Renaissance city-fortress. For four centuries it was ...
for a time with his longtime friend and fellow student,
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, ...
, where he stayed two years to study
Greek literature
Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today.
Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving writte ...
. Pico recommended Manutius to become the tutor of his nephews,
Alberto
Alberto is the Romance version of the Latinized form (''Albertus'') of Germanic ''Albert''. It is used in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The diminutive forms are ''Albertito'' in Spain or ''Albertico'' in some parts of Latin America, Albertin ...
and Leonello Pio, princes of the town of
Carpi
Carpi may refer to:
Places
* Carpi, Emilia-Romagna, a large town in the province of Modena, central Italy
* Carpi (Africa), a city and former diocese of Roman Africa, now a Latin Catholic titular bishopric
People
* Carpi (people), an ancie ...
. In Carpi, Manutius shared a close bond with his student, Alberto Pio. At the end of the 1480s, Manutius published two works addressed to his two pupils and their mother,
Caterina Pico
Caterina Pico (della Mirandola) (1454 - 5 December 1501) was an Italian noblewoman.
Life
She was born in Mirandola, the eldest of the seven children of Gianfrancesco I Pico (1415-1467), lord of Mirandola and Concordia and of Giulia Boiardo ...
—both works were published in Venice by Baptista de Tortis: ''Musarum Panagyris'' with its ''Epistola Catherinae Piae'' (March/May 1487 to March 1491) and the ''Paraenesis'' (1490).
Giovanni Pico and Alberto Pio's families funded the starting costs of Manutius's
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a printing, print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in wh ...
and gave him lands in Carpi. Manutius determined that Venice was the best location for his work, settling there in 1490. In Venice, Manutius began gathering publishing contracts, at which point he met Andrea Torresano, who was also engaged in print publishing. Torresano and Manutius became lifelong business partners, and for their first contract together Manutius hired Torresano to print the first edition of his Latin grammar book the ''Institutiones grammaticae'', published on 9 March 1493.
Aldine Press
The
Aldine Press
The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, 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 dat ...
, established in 1494, had its first publication in March 1495: ''Erotemata cum interpretatione Latina'' by
Constantine Lascaris
Constantine Lascaris ( el, Κωνσταντῖνος Λάσκαρις ''Kostantinos Láskaris''; 1434 – 15 August 1501) was a Greek scholar and grammarian, one of the promoters of the revival of Greek learning in Italy during the Renaissance, ...
. Andrea Torresano and
Pier Francesco Barbarigo, nephew of the
Doge
A doge ( , ; plural dogi or doges) was an elected lord and head of state in several Italian city-states, notably Venice and Genoa, during the medieval and renaissance periods. Such states are referred to as " crowned republics".
Etymology
The ...
,
Agostino Barbarigo
Agostino Barbarigo (3 June 1419 – 20 September 1501) was Doge of Venice from 1486 until his death in 1501.
While he was Doge, the imposing Clock Tower in the Piazza San Marco with its archway through which the street known as the Merceria le ...
, each held fifty per cent of the press. Of Torresano's fifty per cent, Manutius was given one-fifth, but accounts are unclear as to whether Manutius's one-fifth refers to ten per cent of the Aldine Press or ownership exclusively to one-fifth of Torresano's share.
![Aldo Manuzio Aristotele](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Aldo_Manuzio_Aristotele.jpg)
The press's first great achievement was a five-volume folio edition of
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
. Manutius started the first volume of his Aristotle edition in 1495. Four more volumes were published together in 1497 and 1498. The Aldine Press produced nine comedies of
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
in 1498, and
Pietro Bembo
Pietro Bembo, ( la, Petrus Bembus; 20 May 1470 – 18 January 1547) was an Italian scholar, poet, and literary theorist who also was a member of the Knights Hospitaller, and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. As an intellectual of the It ...
edited
Petrarch's poems that Manutius published in July 1501. In addition to editing Greek manuscripts, Manutius corrected and improved texts originally published in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
, Rome, and
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
.
The
Second Italian War
The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds eac ...
suspended the press for a time. During that time,
Desiderius Erasmus
Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' wa ...
asked Manutius to publish his translations of ''
Hecuba
Hecuba (; also Hecabe; grc, Ἑκάβη, Hekábē, ) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War.
Description
Hecuba was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "da ...
'' and ''
Iphigenia in Aulis
''Iphigenia in Aulis'' or ''Iphigenia at Aulis'' ( grc, Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Αὐλίδι, Īphigéneia en Aulídi; variously translated, including the Latin ''Iphigenia in Aulide'') is the last of the extant works by the playwright Euripide ...
'' through the Aldine Press. Erasmus's original letter to Manutius inquires about the printer's proposed plans: a Greek
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
and a
polyglot
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingualism, monolingual speakers in the World population, world's pop ...
bible. Through correspondence, the two came to an agreement. In December 1507, the Aldine Press published ''Iphigenia in Aulis'' in an 80-page
octavo
Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", (abbreviated 8vo, 8º, or In-8) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multip ...
with Erasmus's translation from Greek into Latin. With the success and accuracy of their first collaboration, Manutius agreed to publish the expanded version of the ''Adagiorum collectanea'' Erasmus was working on. Erasmus travelled to Venice, where he spent his first ten months working at the Aldine Press. He lived in Manutius and Torresano's home, where he shared a room with
Girolamo Aleandro
Girolamo Aleandro (also Hieronymus Aleander; 13 February 14801 February 1542) was an Italian cardinal, and .
Life
Aleandro was born on 13 February 1480 in Motta di Livenza, in the province of Treviso, part of the Republic of Venice. He studied i ...
. His research using Manutius's resources and Greek scholars enabled him to expand his collection of proverbs from 819 entries to 3,260 entries. The Aldine press published this newly expanded collection of proverbs, ''
Adagiorum Chiliades'', in 1508. After the publication of ''Adagiorum Chiliades'', Erasmus helped Manutius proofread a Greek edition of Plutarch's ''Moralia'' along with many other Aldine Press publications.
Manutius relied on
Marcus Musurus
Marcus Musurus ( el, Μάρκος Μουσοῦρος ''Markos Mousouros''; it, Marco Musuro; c. 1470 – 1517) was a Greek scholar and philosopher born in Candia, Venetian Crete (modern Heraklion, Crete).
Life
The son of a rich merchant, Musur ...
,
Ioannis Grigoropoulos, and other Greek collaborators to translate for the Aldine Press. He published an edition of minor Greek
orator
An orator, or oratist, is a public speaker, especially one who is eloquent or skilled.
Etymology
Recorded in English c. 1374, with a meaning of "one who pleads or argues for a cause", from Anglo-French ''oratour'', Old French ''orateur'' (14th ...
s (1508) and the lesser works of
Plutarch
Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''P ...
(1509). Printing work halted again while the
League of Cambrai
League or The League may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band
* ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football
Sports
* Sports league
* Rugby league, full contact footba ...
tried to lessen Venice's influence. Manutius reappeared in 1513 with an edition of Plato that he dedicated to
Pope Leo X
Pope Leo X ( it, Leone X; born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, 11 December 14751 December 1521) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 9 March 1513 to his death in December 1521.
Born into the prominent political an ...
in a preface that compares the miseries of warfare and the woes of
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
with the sublime and tranquil objects of the student's life.
With the Aldine Press's increasing popularity, people would come to visit the shop, interrupting Manutius's work. Manutius put up a sign that read, "Whoever you are, Aldus asks you again and again what it is you want from him. State your business briefly and then immediately go away."
Manutius strove for excellence in
typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...
and book design while publishing lower-cost editions. This was carried out under continual difficulties, including problems arising from strikes among his workmen, unauthorized use of Manutius's materials by rivals, and frequent interruptions by war.
Greek classics
Before Manutius, there were fewer than ten Greek titles in print, most of which had to be imported from the Accursius Press of Milan. Only four Italian towns were authorized to produce Greek publications: Milan,
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
,
Vicenza
Vicenza ( , ; ) is a city in northeastern Italy. It is in the Veneto region at the northern base of the ''Monte Berico'', where it straddles the Bacchiglione River. Vicenza is approximately west of Venice and east of Milan.
Vicenza is a th ...
, and
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...
, and they only published works by
Theocritus
Theocritus (; grc-gre, Θεόκριτος, ''Theokritos''; born c. 300 BC, died after 260 BC) was a Greek poet from Sicily and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry.
Life
Little is known of Theocritus beyond what can be inferred from hi ...
,
Isocrates
Isocrates (; grc, Ἰσοκράτης ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education throu ...
, and
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
. Venice printer
John Speyer produced Greek passages but required the minimal Greek letters to be left blank and later filled in by hand.
Manutius desired to "inspire and refine his readers by inundating them with Greek." He originally came to Venice because of its many Greek resources; Venice held Greek manuscripts from the time of
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
and was home to a large cluster of Greek scholars who travelled there from
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
. Venice was also where
Cardinal Bessarion
Bessarion ( el, Βησσαρίων; 2 January 1403 – 18 November 1472) was a Byzantine Greek Renaissance humanist, theologian, Catholic cardinal and one of the famed Greek scholars who contributed to the so-called great revival of letter ...
, in 1468, donated his large Greek manuscript collection. To preserve
ancient Greek literature
Ancient Greek literature is literature written in the Ancient Greek language from the earliest texts until the time of the Byzantine Empire. The earliest surviving works of ancient Greek literature, dating back to the early Archaic period, are ...
, the Aldine Press commissioned a typeface based on classical Greek manuscripts so that readers could experience the original Greek text more authentically.
While publishing Greek manuscripts, Manutius founded the New Academy, a group of
Hellenist
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient ...
scholars, in 1502 to promote Greek studies. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition'' writes that the New Academy's "rules were written in Greek, its members spoke Greek, their names were Hellenized, and their official titles were Greek." Members of the New Academy included Desiderius Erasmus, Pietro Bembo, and
Scipio Fortiguerra. M.J.C. Lowry, a lecturer in history at the University of Warwick, has a different view, regarding the New Academy as a hopeful dream rather than an organized institute.
Manutius spoke Greek in his household and employed thirty Greek speakers at the Aldine Press. Greek speakers from
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
prepared and proofed
manuscript
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printing, printed or repr ...
s and their calligraphy was a model for the casts used for Greek type. Instructions for
typesetter
Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or ''glyphs'' in digital systems representing ''characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random Ho ...
s and
binders were written in Greek, and the prefaces to Manutius's editions were also in Greek. Manutius printed editions of ''Hero and Leander'' by
Musaeus Grammaticus Musaeus Grammaticus ( grc-gre, Μουσαῖος ''Mousaios'') probably belongs to the beginning of the 6th century AD, as his style and metre are evidently modeled on those of Nonnus. He lived before Agathias (530–582) and has been identified w ...
, the ''Galeomyomachia'', and the Greek ''Psalter.'' He called these "Precursors of the Greek Library" because they served as guides to the Greek language. Under Manutius's supervision, the Aldine Press published 75 texts by Classical Greek and Byzantine authors.
Latin and Italian classics
Along with Greek classics, the Aldine Press published Latin and
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
authors. Manutius launched Pietro Bembo's career as a writer by publishing ''
De Aetna'' in 1496, which was the Aldine Press's first Latin publication by a contemporary author. The
Bembo family hired the Aldine Press to produce accurate texts of
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
and Petrarch using Bernardo Bembo's personal manuscript collection. Pietro Bembo worked with Manutius from 1501 to 1502 to provide an accurate edition of Dante and Petrarch and also introduced punctuation. Bembo later made a diagram of sins to illustrate the 1515 Aldine edition of Dante.
Manutius did not hold the same power of innovation over Latin classics as with Greek classics because the publication of these works started 30 years before his time. To promote the Aldine editions in Latin, Manutius promoted the quality of his publications through his prefaces. Manutius was on the lookout for rare manuscripts, but often found instead missing parts of previously published works.
Cuspinianus
Johannes Cuspinianus (December 1473 – 19 April 1529), born Johan Spießhaymer (or Speißheimer), was a German-Austrian humanist, scientist, diplomat, and historian. Born in Spießheim near Schweinfurt in Franconia, of which ''Cuspinianus'' is ...
let Manutius publish the missing parts of Valerius Maximus's work, which Cuspinianus "had found in a manuscript in Vienna." Francesco Negri let Manutius publish the missing text of ''Julius Firmicus'', which Negri found in Romania, and "a manuscript from Britain made an improved edition of Prudentius possible."
The press printed first editions of
Poliziano's collected works,
Pietro Bembo's ''Asolani'',
Francesco Colonna's ''
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
''Hypnerotomachia Poliphili'' (; ), called in English ''Poliphilo's Strife of Love in a Dream'' or ''The Dream of Poliphilus'', is a book said to be by Francesco Colonna. It is a famous example of an incunable (a work of early printing). The wor ...
'', and Dante's ''
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and ...
''. The 1501 publication of
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
introduced the use of
italic print and was produced in higher-than-normal print runs (1,000 rather than the usual 200 to 500 copies).
Imprint and motto
Manutius adopted the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor as his
publisher's device in June 1502. The dolphin-and-anchor symbol is associated with the phrase ''
festina lente
''Festina lente'' () or ''speûde bradéōs'' (, ) is a classical adage and oxymoron meaning "make haste slowly" (sometimes rendered in English as "more haste, less speed"). It has been adopted as a motto numerous times, particularly by the emp ...
,'' meaning "make haste slowly," indicating quickness combined with firmness in the execution of a great scheme. The symbol and phrase were taken from a Roman coin minted during Emperor
Vespasian
Vespasian (; la, Vespasianus ; 17 November AD 9 – 23/24 June 79) was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79. The fourth and last emperor who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors, he founded the Flavian dynasty that ruled the Empi ...
's reign that was given to Manutius by Pietro Bembo.
Manutius's editions of the classics were so highly respected that the dolphin-and-anchor device was almost immediately pirated by French and Italian publishers. Many modern organizations use the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. The device has been used by the nineteenth-century London firm of
William Pickering, and by
Doubleday. The international honour society for library and information science,
Beta Phi Mu
Beta Phi Mu (also or βφμ) is the international honor society for library & information science and information technology. Founded by a group of librarians and library educators, the society's express purpose is to recognize and encourage "su ...
, uses the dolphin and anchor as its insignia.
Enchiridia
Manutius described his new format of books as "libelli portatiles in formam enchiridii" ("portable small books in the form of a manual").
Enchiridion
Enchiridion is a small manual or handbook.
It can refer more specifically to:
* ''Enchiridion of Epictetus'', a short manual of Stoic ethical advice
* The ''Enchiridion de metris'' of Hephaestion, an ancient treatise on poetic meters
* ''Enchiridi ...
, described in ''A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze'', also refers to a handheld weapon, a hint that Aldus intended the books in his Portable Library to be the weapons of scholars. It was for these pocket-sized classics Aldus designed the italic font.
Manutius converted to the smaller format in 1501 with the publication of Virgil. As time went on, Manutius self-advertised his portable format through the dedication pages he published.
Many scholars consider the development of the portable book as Manutius's most celebrated contribution to printing and publishing. These mobile books were the first known appearance of an ''editio minor'', a straightforward text. During the 15th century, books were often chained to a reading platform to protect valuable property, requiring the reader to stay stationary. Publishers often added commentary to their published classics. Thus, pages became overloaded with scholarship and serious material which produced a large book that was difficult to transport. The Aldine Press removed these inconveniences; Manutius's books were "published without commentary and in smaller sizes, usually octavos of five by eight or four by six inches." His famous octavo editions are often regarded as the first prototype of the mass-market paperback.
The octavos were moderately priced considering the known average salaries of the time, but they were not cheap. Manutius priced his Latin octavos at 30
soldi
"Soldi" (; ) is a song recorded by Italian singer Mahmood. It was released on 6 February 2019, as the fifth single from his debut studio album, ''Gioventù bruciata'' (2019). Mahmood co-wrote the song with Dario "Dardust" Faini and Charlie Cha ...
, which was a fourth of a
ducat
The ducat () coin was used as a trade coin in Europe from the later Middle Ages from the 13th to 19th centuries. Its most familiar version, the gold ducat or sequin containing around of 98.6% fine gold, originated in Venice in 1284 and gained wi ...
. His Greek octavos were double the price at 60 soldi. For context, a master mason would earn about 50 soldi a day to make between 50 and 100 ducats a year.
Typefaces
Everyday handwriting in Venice was in
cursive
Cursive (also known as script, among other names) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionalit ...
, but at the time, printed works imitated formal manuscript hands, either
blackletter
Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...
or the humanistic
littera antica. Manutius commissioned typefaces designed to look like the handwriting of humanists both in Latin and Greek in order to uphold the manuscript tradition. In the ''New Aldine Studies,'' Harry George Fletcher III,
Pierpont Morgan Library
The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th ...
's curator for printed books and bindings, writes that Manutius intended "to make available in type a face comfortable for its readers" with the cursive typeface.
Manutius commissioned the
punchcutter
Punchcutting is a craft used in traditional typography to cut letter punches in steel as the first stage of making metal type. Steel punches in the shape of the letter would be used to stamp matrices into copper, which were locked into a mould sh ...
Francesco Griffo Francesco Griffo (1450–1518), also called Francesco da Bologna, was a fifteenth-century Italian punchcutter. He worked for Aldus Manutius, designing the printer's more important humanist typefaces, including the first italic type. He cut Roman, Gr ...
of
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
to create the new typeface. The handwriting reproduced for the many Aldine Press typefaces is a topic of conflicting opinions by scholars; Symonds (1911) suggests Petrarch's handwriting, while the ''New Aldine Studies'' presumes the handwriting of scribes Pomponio Leto and Bartolomeo Sanvito was the inspiration for the typeface. Other scholars believe the first Greek typeface was derived from the handwriting of Immanuel Rhusotas, another scribe during the time of Manutius. The Aldine Press commissioned the first Greek script designed "with accents and letters cast separately and combined by the compositor." The typeface was first used in publishing ''Erotemata'' by Constantine Lascaris in 1495. The Roman typeface was finished later the same year and Pietro Bembo's ''De Aetna'' was the first book published in the new Roman script.
Manutius and Griffo's original typeface is the first known model of
italic type
In typography, italic type is a cursive font based on a stylised form of calligraphic handwriting. Owing to the influence from calligraphy, italics normally slant slightly to the right. Italics are a way to emphasise key points in a printed tex ...
and was used by Manutius until 1501. Five italic words were printed in ''St. Catherine of Siena'' in 1500 and in 1501 an ''Opera'' by Virgil was the first completed book in italic type. A falling out between Manutius and Griffo brought Griffo to leave and supply other publishers with the italic type originally commissioned by the Aldine Press. Griffo only made one set of punches for the Aldine Press, which were used until 1559. Griffo's original italic type did not include capital letters, so many of the Aldine Press publications forwent capital letters.
The 1502 publication of the ''
Metamorphoses
The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...
'' included Manutius's privilege from the Doge of Venice indicating that any use or imitation of Manutius's Greek and Italic typefaces was forbidden. Despite trying to have the typeface protected legally, Manutius could not stop printers outside of Venice from using his work, which led to the typeface's popularity outside of Italy.
Counterfeits and piracy
As the Aldine Press grew in popularity, Aldine counterfeits also increased. Manutius acquired privileges for his printing press from the Venetian Senate, specifically, for "his types, his pioneering octavo format, and even individual texts." Pope Alexander VI in 1502 and Pope Julius II in 1514 granted Manutius printing privileges from the papacy. This did not stop Aldine Press counterfeits, as there was little penalty for piracy at the time.
Manutius attempted to discourage piracy with blunt warnings at the end of his publications, as in ''Sylvarum libri quinque'', by Publius Papinius Statius, where he warned "no one is allowed to print this without penalty." In the Bibliothèque du Roi on 16 March 1503, Manutius tried to warn off those who plagiarized his content, "it happens that in the city of Lyon our books appeared under my name, but full of errors... and deceived unwary buyers due to the similarity of typography and format....Furthermore, the paper is of poor quality and has a heavy odour, and the typography, if you examine it closely, exudes a sort of (as one might phrase it) 'Frenchiness'." He described the counterfeit's typographical errors in detail so that readers might distinguish a real Aldine from a fake. In spite of his efforts, the Lyonese printers were quick to use Manutius's critique to improve their counterfeits.
Illuminated manuscripts and prefaces
Before the printing press and during the Italian Renaissance, illuminated manuscripts were individually created by a credited artist. When print publishing became popular, woodcuts were used to mass-illuminate works. The woodcuts were often reused in several editions, thereby decreasing their value. These woodcuts soon came to Venice and were viewed as part of the "new humanist manuscript." The woodcut images "included aspects of both continuity and discontinuity that involved the activity of Manutius, who was called upon to wholly explicate the new potential of the printed book and deal with the crisis of the illumination." Many of the Aldine Press's publications contained illumination, but Manutius let patrons decide the illumination details while he worked to translate and publish.
Prefatory letters, popular in first editions of Latin works years before, were also common for Aldine editions. Manutius used the Aldine editions to ask scholarly questions and provide information for his readers. In the preface of
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
's ''
Metamorphoses
The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...
'' (1502), he argues that Heroides 17, 19, and 21 (the letters of Helen, Hero, and Cudippe, respectively) were the work of the poet
Sabinus, whom Ovid refers to as Amores. In another preface Manutius explains how a sundial works.
Personal life
![Bernardino Loschi, Aldo Manuzio](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Bernardino_Loschi%2C_Aldo_Manuzio.jpg)
In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Andrea Torresani of
Asola Asola may refer to the following :
Places and jurisdictions
* Asola, Lombardy, in the province of Mantua, northwestern Italy
** its collegiate cathedral Sant'Andrea was the 'see' of a single-parish Abbey nullius of Asola (1509-1818)
* Asola (D ...
. Torresani and Manutius were already business partners, but the marriage combined the two partners' shares in the publishing business. After the marriage, Manutius lived at Torresani's house. Shrinking in popularity, in 1506 the Aldine Press was moved to a house now covered by a bank building in the Venice square, ''Campo Manin''.
In March 1506, Manutius decided to travel for six months in search of new and reliable manuscripts. While travelling with a guide, Manutius was stopped by border guards of the
Marquisate of Mantua
The Marquisate or Margraviate of Mantua was a margraviate in Lombardy, Northern Italy. Constituted by the Capitano del popolo, Capitani del popol, an administrative title used in Italy in the Middle Ages, Italy during the Middle Ages.
The Marqu ...
who were looking for two criminals. Manutius's guide ran in fear, taking with him all of Manutius's personal effects. This suspicious activity led the guards to arrest Manutius. Manutius knew the Marquis of Mantua,
Francesco Gonzaga, and wrote letters to him to explain the situation, but it took six days until Manutius's imprisonment was brought to Gonzaga's attention. While waiting, Manutius spent five days in jail in
Casal Romano and another night in Canneto. He was eventually released by
Geoffroy Carles, president of the Milanese Senate. A new, improved edition of
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
(after 30 March 1509) with an accompanying work by Manutius on Horatian metrics dedicated to Carles was contingent on this experience and Manutius's connection with Carles.
Manutius wrote his will on 16 January 1515 instructing
Giulio Campagnola
Giulio Campagnola (; c. 1482 – c. 1515) was an Italian engraver and painter, whose few, rare, prints translated the rich Venetian Renaissance style of oil paintings of Giorgione and the early Titian into the medium of engraving; to further his ...
to provide capital letters for the Aldine Press's italic type. He died the next month, 6 February, and "with his death, the importance of Italy as a seminal and dynamic force in printing came to an end." Torresani and his two sons carried on the business during the youth of Manutius's children, and eventually
Paulus, Manutius's son, born 1512, took over the business.
Paulus won a lawsuit against his Torresani relatives for sole ownership of Manutius' italic typeface and in 1539 led the press with the Sons of Aldus imprint alongside his brothers until his death in 1574.
The publishing symbol and motto were never wholly abandoned by the
Aldine Press
The Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, 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 dat ...
until the expiration of their firm in its third generation of operation by
Aldus Manutius the Younger
Aldus Manutius, the Younger ( it, Aldo Manuzio il Giovane) (13 February 1547 — 28 October 1597) was the grandson of Aldus Manutius and son of Paulus Manutius. He was the last member of the Manuzio family to be active in the Aldine Press that his ...
.
Manutius dreamed of a
trilingual
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all E ...
Bible but never saw it come to fruition. However, before his death Manutius had begun an edition of the
Septuagint
The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...
, also known as the Greek
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
translated from
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
, the first-ever to be published; it
appeared posthumously in 1518.
Modern influence
1994 marked the 500th anniversary of Aldus Manutius's first publication. On Manutius, Paul F. Grendler wrote, "Aldus ensured the survival of a large number of ancient texts and greatly facilitated the diffusion of the values, enthusiasms, and scholarship of Italian Renaissance Humanism to the rest of Europe". "He jettisoned commentary because he felt that it prevented the dialogue between author and reader that the Renaissance prized."
Legacy
The Aldine Press produced more than 100 editions from 1495 to 1505. The majority were Greek classics, but many notable Latin and Italian works were published as well.
Erasmus was impressed by Manutius; "in a long passage he extols the 'tireless efforts' of Manutius in restoring ancient learning, truly 'a Herculean task,' and he announces that 'Aldus is building up a library which has no other limits than the world itself'."
The Palazzo dei Pio chapel in Carpi has a painted mural that includes Aldus Manutius along with Alberto and Leonello Pio. In Bassiano, Manutius's birthplace, a monument was erected to commemorate the 450th year since Manutius's death. The inscription is Manutius's own words: "for the abundance of good books which, we hope, will finally put to flight all ignorance."
The quality and popularity of Manutius's work made it more expensive in the 20th century than others published around the same time. In 1991, Martin Lowry found that an auction in New York took place where "initial prices of $6,000$8,000 and $8,000$12,000 were quotes on copies of ''Decor Puellarum'' and ''Aulus Gellius'' in Jenson's editions: Aldus' ''Hypnerotomachia Polifili'' started at $25,000$30,000."
References
*Manutius's name is the inspiration for Progetto Manuzio, an
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
free text project similar to
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a Virtual volunteering, volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the ...
.
*A typeface created by
Hermann Zapf
Hermann Zapf (; 8 November 1918 – 4 June 2015) was a German type designer and calligrapher who lived in Darmstadt, Germany. He was married to the calligrapher and typeface designer Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse. Typefaces he designed include Pa ...
was named after Aldus Manutius and dedicated to his memory.
*The novel ''
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
''Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'' is a 2012 novel by American writer Robin Sloan. It was chosen as one of the best 100 books of 2012 by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', was a ''New York Times'' Editor's Choice, and was on the New York Times Har ...
'' by
Robin Sloan
Robin Sloan is an American author. His debut novel, '' Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore'', was published in 2012.
Early life
Sloan was born to a home economics teacher and an appliance salesman. He grew up in Troy, Michigan, where he attended ...
features a fictionalized version of Aldus Manutius, as well as a fictional
secret society
A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
devoted to him. One of the novel's characters, Griffo Gerritszoon, designs a fictitious font called "Gerritszoon" that is preinstalled on every Mac, in allusion to Manutius's associate
Francesco Griffo Francesco Griffo (1450–1518), also called Francesco da Bologna, was a fifteenth-century Italian punchcutter. He worked for Aldus Manutius, designing the printer's more important humanist typefaces, including the first italic type. He cut Roman, Gr ...
, the designer of italic type. The Aldine Press' motto ''festina lente'' is used as the name of the fictional corporation that owns and markets the "Gerritszoon" font.
*The
Aldus Corporation
Aldus Corporation was an American software company best known for its pioneering desktop publishing (DTP) software. PageMaker, the company's most well-known product, ushered in the modern era of desktop computers such as the Macintosh seeing ...
, a software company founded in Seattle in 1985 known for
PageMaker
Adobe PageMaker (formerly Aldus) is a discontinued desktop publishing computer program introduced in 1985 by the Aldus Corporation on the Apple Macintosh. The combination of the Macintosh's graphical user interface, PageMaker publishing software, ...
and
FreeHand, was named after Manutius and used his profile as part of their company logo. Aldus was purchased by
Adobe Systems
Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware
and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
in 1994.
*The ''Aldus Journal of Translation'', a publication from
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, is named after Aldus Manutius.
*The book ''John Henry Nash: The Aldus of San Francisco'' relates
John Nash to Aldus Manutius and San Francisco to Venice.
*"Manuzio" ("Manutius" in the English translation) is the name of a
vanity publisher
A vanity press or vanity publisher, sometimes also subsidy publisher, is a publishing house where anyone can pay to have a book published.. The term "vanity press" is often used pejoratively, implying that an author who uses such a service is publ ...
in
Umberto Eco's 1988 novel ''
Foucault's Pendulum
''Foucault's Pendulum'' (original title: ''Il pendolo di Foucault'' ) is a novel by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988, and an English translation by William Weaver appeared a year later.
''Foucault's P ...
''.
Publications
A partial list of works translated and published by the Aldine Press under Manutius's supervision.
Greek editions
Greek editions published during Manutius's lifetime:
*''Galeomyomachia'', c. 1494–1495
*''Hero and Leander'', Musaeus, c. 1495
*''Psalter'', c. 1497
*''Rules of the New Academy'', c. 1501
*''Epitome of the Eight Parts of Speech'', Lascaris, 1495
*''Organon'', Aristotle, 1495
*''Grammar'', Theodorus Gaza, 1495
*''Idylls'', Theocritus, 1495–1496
*''Thesaurus, Corn of Amalthea and Gardens of Adones'', 1496
*''Historia Plantarum'', Theophrastus, 1497
*''Dictionarium Graecum'', I. Crastonus, 1497
*''Hours of the Virgin'', 1497
*''Institutiones Graecae Grammatices'', U. Bolzanius, 1497/1498
*''Physics'', Aristotle, 1497
*''History of animals'', Aristotle, 1497
*''Prolegomena to the Deipnosophists'', Athenaeus, 1498
*''Nicomachean Ethics'', Aristotle, 1498
*''Nine Comedies'', Aristophanes, 1498
*''Catalogues of Aldus's editions''
*''Epistolae diversorum philosophorum oratorum...'', 1499
*''Phaenomena'', Aratus, 1499
*''Metabole
araphrase of John', Nonnus of Panopolis, 1501
*''Bibbia'', 1501
*''Poetae Christiani Veteres, first volume'', 1501
*''Poetae Christiani Veteres, second volume'', 1502
*''De octo partibus orationis'', Constantine Lascaris, 1501–1503
*''De urbibus'', Stephanus Byzantius, 1502
*''Onomasticon'', Julius Pollux, 1502
*''History of the Peloponnesian War'', Thucydides, 1502
*''Historiarum libri novem'', Herodotus, 1502
*''Tragedies'', Sophocles, 1502
*''Tragoediae septendecim'', Euripides, 1503
*''Complete works'', Lucian, 1503
*''De interpretatione'', Ammonius Hermiae, 1503
*''Prolegomena'', Ulpian, 1503
*''Anthology of Epigrams'', M. Planudes, 1503
*''Commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics'', Ioannes Grammaticus (Philoponus), 1504
*''Life of Apollonius of Tyana'', Flavius Philostratus, 1504
*''Carmina ad bene...'', Gregorius Nazianzenus, 1504
*Homer, 1504
*''Orations'', Demosthenes, 1504
*''Horae in Laudem...'', 1504
*''Posthomerica'', Quintus Smyrnaeus, 1504–1505
*Aesop, 1505
*''Adagiorum'', Erasmus, 1508
*Greek Orators (2 volumes), 1508–1509
*''Opuscula'', Plutarch, 1509
*''Erotemata'', M. Chrysoloras, 1512
*''Epitome'', C. lascaris, 1512
*Pindar, 1513
*''Orators' Speeches'', 1513
*Greek Orators, 1513
*''Complete works'', Plato, 1513
*''Commentary On the Topics of Aristotle'', Alexander of Aphrodisias, 1513/1514
*''Suda'', 1514
*''Lexikon'', Hesychius, 1514
*''Deipnosophists'', Athenaeus, 1514
*''Grammar'', Aldus Manutius, 1515
Latin classics
Partial list of Latin editions published during his lifetime:
* ''Astronomica'', Julius Firmicus, October 1499. & ''Astronomica'', Manilius (October 1499)
*
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into E ...
(December 1500)
*''Christian Poets, Volume 1'',
Prudentius
Aurelius Prudentius Clemens () was a Roman citizen, Roman Christianity, Christian poet, born in the Roman Empire, Roman province of Tarraconensis (now Northern Spain) in 348.H. J. Rose, ''A Handbook of Classical Literature'' (1967) p. 508 He prob ...
,
Prosper {{wiktionary, prosper
Prosper may refer to:
__NOTOC__ Places in the United States
* Prosper, Minnesota, an unincorporated community
* Prosper, North Dakota, an unincorporated community
* Prosper, Oregon, an unincorporated community
* Prosper, Texa ...
,
John of Damascus
John of Damascus ( ar, يوحنا الدمشقي, Yūḥanna ad-Dimashqī; gr, Ἰωάννης ὁ Δαμασκηνός, Ioánnēs ho Damaskēnós, ; la, Ioannes Damascenus) or John Damascene was a Christian monk, priest, hymnographer, and a ...
(January 1501)
*
Vergil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...
(April 1501)
*
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
(May 1501)
*
Juvenal
Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the ''Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...
&
Persius
Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Ancient Rome, Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan civilization, Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoicism, Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he ...
(August 1501)
*
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...
(December 1501)
*
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
,
Tibullus
Albius Tibullus ( BC19 BC) was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins.
Little is known about the life of Tibullus. There are only a fe ...
,
Propertius
Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.
Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of ''Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the poets Gallus a ...
(January 1502)
*''Letter to Friends'',
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...
(April 1502)
*
Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial ...
(April 1502)
*''Christian Poets, Volume 2'',
Sedulius,
Iuvencus,
Arator
Arator was a sixth-century Christian poet from Liguria in northwestern Italy. His best known work, ''De Actibus Apostolorum'', is a verse history of the Apostles.
Biography
Arator was probably of Ligurian origin. An orphan, he studied at Milan ...
(June 1502)
*
Statius
Publius Papinius Statius (Greek: Πόπλιος Παπίνιος Στάτιος; ; ) was a Greco-Roman poet of the 1st century CE. His surviving Latin poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the ''Thebaid''; a collection of occasional poetry, ...
(August 1502)
*
Valerius Maximus
Valerius Maximus () was a 1st-century Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes: ''Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX'' ("Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings", also known as ''De factis dictisque memorabilibus'' ...
(October 1502)
*''
Metamorphoses
The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the wo ...
'',
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...
(October 1502)
*''
Heroides
The ''Heroides'' (''The Heroines''), or ''Epistulae Heroidum'' (''Letters of Heroines''), is a collection of fifteen epistolary
Epistolary means "in the form of a letter or letters", and may refer to:
* Epistolary ( la, epistolarium), a Christi ...
,
Amores
Amores may refer to:
* ''Amores'' (Ovid), the first book by the poet Ovid, published in 5 volumes in 16 BCE
* ''Amores'' (Lucian), a play by Lucian; also known as ''Erotes''
* Erotes (mythology), known as Amores by the Romans
* ''Amores'', a bo ...
, Ars amandi,
Remedia amoris
''Remedia Amoris'' (''Love's Remedy'' or ''The Cure for Love'') . 2 ADis an 814-line poem in Latin by Roman poet Ovid.
In this companion poem to '' The Art of Love'', Ovid offers advice and strategies to avoid being hurt by love feelings, or to ...
, etc.'', Ovid (December 1502)
*''
Fasti
In ancient Rome, the ''fasti'' (Latin plural) were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word ''fasti'' continued to be used for simil ...
,
Tristia
The ''Tristia'' ("Sorrows" or "Lamentations") is a collection of letters written in elegiac couplets by the Augustan poet Ovid during his exile from Rome. Despite five books of his copious bewailing of his fate, the immediate cause of Augustus ...
,
Ex Ponto
''Epistulae ex Ponto'' (''Letters from the Black Sea'') is a work of Ovid, in four books. It is a collection of letters describing Ovid's exile in Tomis (modern-day Constanța) written in elegiac couplets and addressed to his wife and friends. Th ...
'', Ovid (February 1503)
*''Homilies'',
Origen
Origen of Alexandria, ''Ōrigénēs''; Origen's Greek name ''Ōrigénēs'' () probably means "child of Horus" (from , "Horus", and , "born"). ( 185 – 253), also known as Origen Adamantius, was an Early Christianity, early Christian scholar, ...
(after 4 April 1503)
*Vergil (December 1505)
*''Letters'',
Pliny the Younger
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo (61 – c. 113), better known as Pliny the Younger (), was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome. Pliny's uncle, Pliny the Elder, helped raise and educate ...
(November 1508)
*Horace (after 30 March 1509)
*
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (; 86 – ), was a Roman historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became during the 50s BC a partisan o ...
(April 1509)
*''Letters to
Atticus,
Brutus
Marcus Junius Brutus (; ; 85 BC – 23 October 42 BC), often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman politician, orator, and the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar. After being adopted by a relative, he used the name Quintus Serv ...
and his brother
Quintus
Quintus is a male given name derived from '' Quintus'', a common Latin forename (''praenomen'') found in the culture of ancient Rome. Quintus derives from Latin word ''quintus'', meaning "fifth".
Quintus is an English masculine given name and ...
'', Cicero (June 1513)
*''On the Meaning of Archaic Words'', Festus (June 1513)
*
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...
(December 1513)
*''Rhetorical Works'', Cicero (March 1514)
*''On Agriculture'',
Cato,
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...
,
Columella
Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (; Arabic: , 4 – ) was a prominent writer on agriculture in the Roman Empire.
His ' in twelve volumes has been completely preserved and forms an important source on Roman agriculture, together with the wo ...
,
Palladius (May 1514)
*
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilia ...
(August 1514)
*Vergil (October 1514)
*Lucretius (January 1515)
Humanist works
Partial list of Humanist authors translated and published by the Aldine Press under Manutius's supervision:
*''Instructional Principles of Latin Grammar'', Aldus Manutius (5 March 1493)
*''Gleanings in Dialectics'', Lorenzo Maioli (July 1497)
*''Complete Works'',
Angelo Poliziano
Agnolo (Angelo) Ambrogini (14 July 1454 – 24 September 1494), commonly known by his nickname Poliziano (; anglicized as Politian; Latin: '' Politianus''), was an Italian classical scholar and poet of the Florentine Renaissance. His scho ...
(July 1498)
*''Cornucopiae'',
Niccolò Perotti
Niccolò Perotti, also Perotto or Nicolaus Perottus (1429 – 14 December 1480) was an Italian humanist and the author of one of the first modern Latin school grammars.
Biography
Born in Sassoferrato (near Fano), Marche, Perotti studied with Vitt ...
(July 1499)
*''Rudiments of Latin Grammar'', Aldus Manutius (February–June 1501)
*''On Imagination'',
Gianfrancesco Pico (April 1501)
*''The Land and Customs of the Zygians call Circassians'', Giorgio Interiano (October 1502)
*''Urania, Meteora, The Gardens of the Hesperides, etc.'',
Giovanni Pontano
Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), later known as Giovanni Gioviano ( la, Ioannes Iovianus Pontanus), was a humanist and poet from Cerreto di Spoleto, in central Italy. He was the leading figure of the Accademia Pontaniana after the death of Antonio ...
(May–August 1505)
*''On Hunting'',
Adriano Castellesi
Adriano Castellesi (-), also known as Adriano de Castello or Hadrian de Castello, was an Italian cardinal, an English agent in Rome, and a writer. He was born in Corneto, which is today's Tarquinia. He was the child of a modest family.
Biograph ...
(September 1505)
*''
Adages
An adage (; Latin: adagium) is a memorable and usually philosophical aphorism that communicates an important truth derived from experience, custom, or both, and that many people consider true and credible because of its longeval tradition, i.e. ...
'' or ''Adagiorum Chiliades'', Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (September 1508)
*''Poems'', Tito and
Ercole Strozzi
Ercole Strozzi (Ferrara, September 2, 1473 – Ferrara, June 6, 1508) was an Italian poet, the son of Tito Vespasiano Strozzi. He was a friend of Lucrezia Borgia, to whom he dedicated the poem ''La caccia''. He married the poet Barbara Torelli and ...
(January 1513)
*''Arcadia'',
Jacopo Sannazaro
Jacopo Sannazaro (; 28 July 1458 – 6 August 1530) was an Italian poet, humanist and epigrammist from Naples.
He wrote easily in Latin, in Italian and in Neapolitan, but is best remembered for his humanist classic '' Arcadia'', a masterwork ...
(September 1514)
References
Citations
Sources
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Further reading
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External links
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Exhibit on Aldus Manutius and his pressat th
Harold B. Lee Library Brigham Young University
*
Works by Aldus Manutiusat Archive.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manutius, Aldus
15th-century births
1515 deaths
15th-century Venetian people
16th-century Venetian people
Italian Renaissance humanists
Italian printers
Italian publishers (people)
Italian typographers and type designers
People from the Province of Latina
Printers of incunabula
Italian businesspeople in retailing
15th-century Italian businesspeople
Harold B. Lee Library-related rare books articles