Aldine Press and Italic Type (1501): Aldus Manutius in Venice

The Aldine Press, founded in Venice by the scholar-printer Aldus Manutius, published a small edition of Virgil in April 1501 set entirely in a new slanted typeface: italic. Together with the press’s printed editions of the Greek classics and its handy pocket-sized format, the 1501 Virgil made Aldus one of the most influential publishers in the history of the book.

Background: Venice and the printed book

By the 1490s Venice was the busiest printing centre in Europe, only a few decades after Gutenberg’s printing press had shown how movable metal type could produce books in quantity. The city combined wealth, trade routes for selling books and a large community of Greek scholars, many of whom had arrived after the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453.

Aldus Manutius (Aldo Manuzio) was born around 1450–1452 in Bassiano, south of Rome. He trained as a humanist teacher of Latin and Greek and worked as tutor to the princes of Carpi before moving to Venice around 1489–1490. His aim was educational: he wanted to make accurate texts of ancient Greek literature available to readers who could not travel to the few libraries that held manuscripts.

The Greek classics

Aldus set up his press with financial backing from the established printer Andrea Torresani, who later became his father-in-law, and from the Barbarigo family. His first dated book, a Greek grammar by Constantine Lascaris, appeared in 1495. Between 1495 and 1498 he published the works of Aristotle in five large volumes, a major technical feat because Greek type, with its many accents and ligatures, was hard to design and set.

Over the following years the press issued first printed editions of Aristophanes (1498), Thucydides, Sophocles and Herodotus (1502), and Plato (1513), among others. Aldus gathered Greek-speaking scholars and editors around him, informally known as the New Academy. In 1496 he also printed Pietro Bembo’s short Latin dialogue De Aetna in a clear roman type cut by Francesco Griffo; that typeface later inspired Claude Garamond and modern revivals such as the font called Bembo.

Italic type and the pocket book

Aldus’s best-known innovation came in 1501. Francesco Griffo, a punchcutter from Bologna, cut a typeface imitating the slanted cursive handwriting used by humanist scribes and in papal chanceries. A few italic words had appeared in an Aldine book of 1500, but the Virgil of April 1501 was the first book printed entirely in italic.

The new type was compact, so more words fitted on each line. Aldus used it for small octavo volumes, which he described as books that could be held in the hand. Previously, serious editions of the classics were usually large folios meant for a desk or lectern. The Aldine octavos, without lengthy commentaries, could be carried and read anywhere. Petrarch followed in 1501, edited by Bembo, and Dante in 1502, helping to establish Italian vernacular classics in print.

The Venetian Senate granted Aldus a privilege, an early form of protection similar to a patent, over his italic type. It could not stop imitators: printers in Lyon and elsewhere soon issued unauthorised copies of his octavos. Griffo himself quarrelled with Aldus and left Venice to work in Fano and Bologna.

Key people

• Aldus Manutius (c. 1450–1515): humanist teacher turned publisher, editor and businessman.
• Francesco Griffo (c. 1450–1518): punchcutter who cut the Aldine roman, Greek and italic types.
• Andrea Torresani: Venetian printer, partner and father-in-law of Aldus, who ran the business after his death.
• Pietro Bembo: Venetian scholar whose De Aetna and edition of Petrarch were printed by Aldus.
• Erasmus of Rotterdam: worked in the Aldine shop in 1508 while the press printed his enlarged Adagia.

Legacy

The Aldine Press published well over a hundred editions under Aldus. Its dolphin-and-anchor mark, used from about 1502 with the motto Festina lente (“make haste slowly”), became a sign of quality that later printers copied. After Aldus died in 1515, the press continued under Torresani, his son Paolo Manuzio and grandson Aldo the Younger until 1597.

Italic gradually changed role. At first it was a text face for whole books; by the late sixteenth century it was mainly used alongside roman type for emphasis, titles and foreign words, as it still is today. Aldine books also helped popularise features such as the modern-looking semicolon and the idea of a portable, affordable classic, an ancestor of the modern paperback. Northern printers such as the Plantin Press in Antwerp inherited many of these typographic standards.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Aldus invented printing in Venice. Fact: dozens of presses were already working in Venice before Aldus arrived; his contribution was editorial quality, Greek type, italic and the small format.
• Myth: Aldus cut the italic type himself. Fact: the punches were cut by Francesco Griffo; Aldus commissioned and used the design.

Timeline

• c. 1450–1452: Aldus Manutius born in Bassiano, near Rome.
• c. 1489–1490: Aldus settles in Venice.
• 1495: First dated Aldine book, the Greek grammar of Constantine Lascaris; the Aristotle edition begins.
• 1496: Bembo’s De Aetna printed in Griffo’s roman type.
• 1499: Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a celebrated illustrated book, is printed.
• 1501, April: Virgil’s works published in octavo, the first book set entirely in italic.
• 1508: Erasmus works at the press on his Adagia.
• 1515, 6 February: Aldus dies in Venice.

Why it matters

The Aldine Press showed that printing could serve scholarship as well as commerce. Its accurate Greek editions spread classical learning across Europe, and its italic type and pocket books changed what a book looked like and how people read.