Brittney on Aldus Manutius

Aldus Manutius (1449-1515) (Brittney Bressler)

Aldus Manutius, born in Italy under the name Teobaldo Mannuci, was an Italian humanist scholar and an important figure in the history of printing, publishing, and typography. In his time, he also founded the “New Academy,” a school that taught Greek studies.

 After studying and teaching in Rome and Ferrara, Manutius founded a printing press in 1494 in Venice. He was enthusiastic about promoting the study of Greek, which led him to hire many Greek scholars and compositors, making Greek the official language of his business. He printed many first editions of classic works, including works by Aristophanes, Thucydides, Sophocles, Herodotus, Xenophon, Euripides, Demosthenes, Plutarch, and some Greek orators. He also printed more contemporary works by humanists like Erasmus, Petrarch, and Italian writer Pietro Bembo, who he happened to know personally. Bembo gave him a medal with an image of an anchor and a dolphin, which eventually became his signature stamp on his printings, symbolizing the idea of “producing much, but slowly.”

The Aldine press was home to many firsts in printing. With the help of his partner Francesco Griffo, he created fonts in Greek and Roman letters, the most prominent being the "Aldine” Roman font. Along with these new fonts came new forms of punctuation, such as the semi-colon. His press also produced pocket sized classical works known as “Aldine” editions, but he referred to them as “libelli portatiles,” meaning “portable little books.” These pocket-sized editions of classics became very popular and were much more affordable than regular editions. In doing this, Manutius seemed to have achieved his goal of promoting the study of Greek classics.