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. The first book that was dated and printed under his name appeared in 1495.
The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography, among other things, for the introduction of italics. The press was the first to issue printed books in the small octavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and like that intended for portability and ease of reading. According to Curt F. Bühler, the press issued 132 books during twenty years of activity under Aldus. After Aldus’s death in 1515 the press was continued by his wife, Maria and her father, Andrea Torresani, until his son, Paulus Manutius took over. His grandson Aldus 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 as Aldines.
The press enjoyed a monopoly of works printed in Greek in the Republic 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 in Lyons and elsewhere.

Beginnings

, the founder of the Aldine Press, was originally a humanist scholar and teacher. Manutius met Andrea Torresani, who had acquired publishing equipment from Nicholas Jensen's widow. The Aldine Press was originally owned half by Pier Francesco Barbarigo, the nephew of the current doge of the time, Agostino Barbarigo, and the other half by Andrea Torresani. Manutius owned one fifth of Torresani's share. Manutius mainly was in charge of the scholarship and editing, leaving financial and operating concerns to Barbarigo and Torresani. In 1496, Aldus established his own location in a building called the Thermae in the Sestiere di San Polo on the campo Sant'Agostin today numero civico 2343 San Polo on the calle della Chiesa, now the location of the restaurant Due Colonne. Though there are two commemorative plaques on the building numero civico 2311 Rio Terà Secondo, historians regard them to be erroneously placed based on contemporaneous letters addressed to Manutius; the first erroneous plaque had been placed by Abbot don Vincenzo Zenier in 1828. Manutius lived and worked in the Thermae 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. In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Andrea Torresani of Asola. 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 Torresani's house in the parish of San Paternian. It was demolished in 1873 and now covered by a bank building in the Venice square, Campo Manin.

Accomplishments of the Aldine Press

The press was started by Manutius based on his love of classics and the need of preservation of Hellenic studies. At first the press printed new copies of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek and Latin classics. Manutius also printed dictionaries and grammars to help people interpret the books, used by scholars wanting to learn Greek to employ learned Greeks to teach them directly. Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein claimed that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had threatened the importance and survival of Greek scholarship, but publications such as those by the Aldine Press secured it. Erasmus was one of the scholars learned in Greek with whom the Aldine Press partnered in order to provide accurately translated text. The Aldine Press also expanded into current languages, mainly Italian and French.

Humanist typefaces

Aldus Manutius hired Francesco Griffo to create a typeface designed to reproduce the written hand of the humanists. This resulted in the first adapted and known today as italic type. It was first used to print Cardinal Pietro Bembo's De Aetna in 1495. Before this time print publishing used block letters, the look of handwriting as print was a new phenomenon and, try as he might to prevent it, Manutius' typeface was illegally copied, spreading through Europe.

Aldus Manutius the Elder's portable books

In 1505 Manutius produced plain texts in useful form, using the term enchiridion, meaning a manual or small, hand-held weapon. The octavo was the first appearance of the editio minor, a straightforward text, established as well as the editor can manage. Although these new, portable books were not cheap, the books of the Aldine Press did not force upon their buyers a substantial investment that large volumes of text and commentary demanded during this era. The editio minor, instead, brought financial and logistical benefits to those interested in the classics. An individual didn't have to go to the book, rather now the book came along with them.

Imprint and motto

In 1501, Aldus used as his publisher's device the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. "The dolphin and anchor device owed its origins most immediately to Pietro Bembo. Aldus was to tell Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the Emperor Vesparian and bearing an image of this device" The image of the dolphin and anchor on the coin came with a saying, "Festina Lente", meaning "make haste slowly". This would become the motto for the Aldine Press.

The Aldine Press after 1515

the Elder died on February 6, 1515. After his death the firm was run by Andrea Torresani and his daughter, Maria, the widow of Aldus Manutius. The Aldine Press was named in 1508 as "In the House of Aldus and Andrea Torresano" which 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 continued the business until his death.

Publications

A partial list of publications from the Aldine Press cited from Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze.
Works published from the Greeks. Manutius printed thirty editiones 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 in the Althorp library of the 2nd Earl Spencer, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
In North America, the most substantial Aldine holdings can be found in the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at University of California, Los Angeles, at the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin, and at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.