Scholar and printer, born in Sermoneta, Latium, Italy. He was the founder of the Aldine Press, which produced the first printed editions of many Greek and Roman classics. He had beautiful founts of Greek and Latin type made, and was the first to use italics on a large scale.
Aldus Manutius (1449/50 - February 6, 1515), the Latin form of Aldo Manuzio (born Teobaldo Mannucci; sometimes called Aldus Manutius, the Elder to distinguish him from his grandson) was the founder of the Aldine Press.
Biography
Manutius received a scholar's training, studying Latin at Rome under Gasparino da Verona, and Greek at Ferrara under Guarino da Verona. There he stayed two years, pursuing his studies in Greek literature. Before Pico removed to Florence, he procured for Manutius the post of tutor to his nephews Alberto and Lionello Pio, princes of Carpi. Alberto Pio supplied Manutius with funds for starting his printing press, and gave him lands at Carpi.
It was Manutius' ambition to secure the literature of Greece from further loss by committing its chief masterpieces to type. Before his time four Italian towns had won the honors of Greek publications: Milan, with the grammar of Lascaris, Aesop, Theocritus, a Greek Psalter, and Isocrates, between 1476 and 1493;
Of these works, only three, the Milanese Theocritus and Isocrates and the Florentine Homer, were classics. Manutius selected Venice as the most appropriate station for his labours. He settled there in 1490, and soon afterwards gave to the world editions of the Hero and Leander of Musaeus, the Galeomyomachia, and the Greek Psalter. These have no date; but they are the earliest tracts issued from his press, and are called by him "Precursors of the Greek Library."
At Venice Manutius gathered an army of Greek scholars and compositors around him. His trade was carried on by Greeks, and Greek was the language of his household. Instructions to typesetters and binders were given in Greek. The preface to his editions were written in Greek. Greeks from Crete collated manuscripts, read proofs, and gave models of calligraphy for casts of Greek type. Not counting the craftsmen employed in merely manual labour, Manutius entertained as many as thirty of these Greek assistants in his family. It is possible that during this period, in his printing works, Hieromonk Makarije was educated, who would later found the Obod printing works of Cetinje and print the first book in Serbian and Romanian.
The Second Italian War, which pressed heavily on Venice at this time, suspended Manutius' labours for a period. But in 1508 he resumed his series with an edition of the minor Greek orators; In 1513 Manutius reappeared with an edition of Plato, which he dedicated to Leo X in a preface eloquently and earnestly comparing the miseries of warfare and the woes of Italy with the sublime and tranquil objects of the student's life.
These complete the list of Manutius' prime services to Greek literature. Omission has been made of Manutius' reprints, in order that the attention of the reader might be concentrated on his labours in editing Greek classics from manuscripts. and, as the classics issued from Florence, Rome or Milan, Manutius took them up, bestowing in each case fresh industry upon the collation of codices and the correction of texts. The Asolani of Bembo, the collected writings of Poliziano, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Dante's Divine Comedy, Petrarch's poems, a collection of early Latin poets of the Christian era, the letters of the younger Pliny, the poems of Pontanus, Sannazaro's Arcadia, Quintilian, Valerius Maximus, and the Adagia of Erasmus were printed, either in first editions, or with a beauty of type and paper never reached before, between the years 1495 and 1514. For these Italian and Latin editions, Manutius had the elegant type struck which bears his name.
Manutius' enthusiasm for Greek literature was not confined to the printing-room. Whatever the students of this century may think of his scholarship, they must allow that only vast erudition and thorough familiarity with the Greek language could have enabled him to accomplish what he did. When he died, bequeathing Greek literature as an inalienable possession to the world, he was a poor man. In order to promote Greek studies, Manutius founded an academy of Hellenists in 1502 under the title of the New Academy. Its rules were written in Greek. Its members were obliged to speak Greek. Their names were Hellenized, and their official titles were Greek.
In 1505 Manutius married Maria, daughter of Andrea Torresano of Asola.
Aldus Manutius created the italic typeface style, for the exclusive use of which for many years he obtained a patent, though the honour of the invention is more probably due to his typefounder, Francesco Griffo, than to him.
He is also believed to have been the first typographer to use a semicolon.
Manutius produced a publication of Virgil's Opera in Venice, in 1501.
Notes and references
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. ^ Slobodan and Miodrag Nedeljkovic: Графичко обликовање и писмо ^ Lynne Truss, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Gotham Books (2004). Lowry, The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice, Oxford, Blackwell, 1979.Progetto Manuzio
Aldus Manutius' name is the inspiration for Progetto Manuzio, an Italian free text project similar to Project Gutenberg.
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