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MANUTIUS, Aldus - b. ~1450 Bassiano, d. 1515 Venezia - WGA

MANUTIUS, Aldus

(b. ~1450 Bassiano, d. 1515 Venezia)

Italian printer, publisher, teacher and translator. He studied in Rome and Ferrara and spent some time in Mirandola with Giovanni Pico (1463-94). In 1483 he was tutor to the Pio family. He formed a project to publish Greek texts and in 1489-90 moved to Venice, where soon afterwards he published the Musarum panegyris (1491). His Greek publications formed the core of his activities: he issued c. 30 first editions of literary and philosophical Greek texts including a five-volume Aristotle (1495-98). The first book printed with his own newly cut Greek type was the Erotemata (1495) by Constantine Lascaris (1434-?1501). Three further Aldine Greek types were developed, the last in 1502.

Manutius established a pre-eminent position in Venetian publishing and in 1495 entered into a formal partnership with Andrea Torresani, his future father-in-law, and Pierfrancesco Barbarigo. His total output has been estimated at 120,000 or more copies. One of his most significant innovations was the production of small-format editions of Classical texts, starting with those of Virgil in 1501, produced in comparatively large print runs of 1000, the earliest precursor of the modern paperback. Typographically his major achievement was the type cut by Francesco Bologna, il Griffo, for Pietro Bembo’s De Aetna (February 1495), a truly modern type still used in modified form. His activities as a teacher, scholar and translator were of equal importance to his printing work: his academy included among its associates Erasmus, Pietro Bembo, Andrea Navagero (1483-1529) and Fra Giovanni Giocondo of Verona.

Poliphilus in a Wood
Poliphilus in a Wood by

Poliphilus in a Wood

This print is from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published by Aldine Press, one of the foremost European printing houses at the end of the fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth century. 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 of that time. It was a centre of classical scholarship; among the visitors to the Press was Erasmus of Rotterdam, who carefully edited texts published there.

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