MANUTIUS, ALDUS, THE ELDER

born 1449, Bassiano, Papal States died Feb. 6, 1515, Venice Italian Aldo Manuzio Il Vecchio the leading figure of his time in printing, publishing, and typography, founder of a veritable dynasty of great printer-publishers, and organizer of the famous Aldine Press. Manutius produced the first printed editions of many of the Greek and Latin classics and is particularly associated with the production of small, excellently edited pocket-size books printed in inexpensive editions. Pages from the first book to incorporate italic typeface (Top) Dedication and After studies in Rome and Ferrara, Manutius reached Venice in 1490 and gathered around him a group of Greek scholars and compositors. In March 1495 he issued his first dated book, the Erotemata of Constantine Lascaris. During 149598 he printed five volumes of Aristotle; in 1495, the Idylls of Theocritus and De Aetna of Pietro Bembo; in 1498, works by Aristophanes and Politian. Francesco Griffo, who was his type cutter, was responsible in 1500 for the first italic face, first regularly used in the Virgil of 1501 (see photograph. The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) of Francesco Colonna, with its outstanding woodcuts by an unknown artist, was Manutius' most famous book. In 1501 he printed Juvenal, Martial, and Petrarch's Cose volgari; in 1502, works by Catullus, Lucan, Thucydides, Sophocles, and Herodotus; in August 1502, La divina commedia of Dante, which first showed the famous colophon of the Aldine anchor and dolphin. In the Sophocles of 1502 occurred the first mention of the Aldine academy, an organization of scholars founded by Manutius to edit classical texts. Between 1503 and 1514 his production included works by Xenophon, Euripides, Homer, Aesop, Virgil, Erasmus, Horace, Pindar, and Plato. Manutius married in 1505, and thereafter the name of his father-in-law, Andrea Torresani di Asola, appeared regularly with his in imprints. After Manutius' death, his brothers-in-law, the Asolani, carried on the Aldine Press until his third son, Paulus (see Manutius, Paulus), took over in 1533. Paulus went to Rome in 1561, leaving the Aldine Press to his son Aldus Manutius the Younger (q.v.). It is probable that the Aldine family printed 1,000 editions between 1495 and 1595.