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MANUTIUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 626 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MANUTIUS , the Latin name of an See also:

Italian See also:family (Mannucci, Manuzio), famous in the See also:history of See also:printing as organizers of the Aldine See also:press. 1. ALDUS MANUTIUS (1450-1515). Teobaldo Mannucci, better known as Aldo Manuzio, the founder of the Aldine press, was See also:born in 1450 at Sermoneta in the Papal States. He received a See also:scholar's training, studying Latin at See also:Rome under Gaspariiio da See also:Verona, and See also:Greek at See also:Ferrara under See also:Guarino da Verona. In 1482 he went to reside at See also:Mirandola with his old friend and See also:fellow-student, the illustrious Giovanni See also:Pico. There he stayed two years, prosecuting his studies in Greek literature. Before Pico removed to See also:Florence, he procured for Aldo the See also:post of See also:tutor to his nephews Alberto and Lionello Pio, princes of See also:Carpi. Alberto Pio supplied Aldo with funds for starting his printing press, and gave him lands at Carpi. It was Aldo's ambition to secure the literature of See also:Greece from further See also:accident by committing its See also:chief masterpieces to type. Before his See also:time four Italian towns had won the honours of Greek publications: See also:Milan, with the See also:grammar of See also:Lascaris, See also:Aesop, See also:Theocritus, a Greek Psalter, and Isocrates, between 1476 and 1493; See also:Venice,with the Erotemata of Chrysoloras in 1484; See also:Vicenza, with reprints of Lascaris's grammar and the Erotemata, in 1488 and 1490; Florence, with Alopa's See also:Homer, in 1488. Of these See also:works, only three, the Milanese Theocritus and Isocrates and the Florentine Homer, were See also:classics.

Aldo selected Venice as the most appropriate station for his labours. He settled there in 1490, and soon afterwards gave to the See also:

world See also:editions of the See also:Hero and Leander of See also: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 Aldo gathered an See also:army of Greek scholars and compositors around him. His See also:trade was carried on by Greeks, and Greek was the See also:language of his See also:household. Instructions to type-setters and binders were given in Greek. The prefacest.to his editions were written in Greek. Greeks from See also:Crete collated See also:MSS., read proofs, and gave See also:models of calligraphy for casts of Greek type. Not counting the craftsmen employed in merely See also:manual labour, Aldo entertained as many as See also:thirty of these Greek assistants in his family. His own See also:industry and See also:energy were unremitting. In 1495 he issued the first See also:volume of his See also:Aristotle. Four more volumes completed the See also:work in 1497-1498. Nine comedies of See also:Aristophanes appeared in 1498.

See also:

Thucydides, See also:Sophocles and See also:Herodotus followed in r 502; See also:Xenophon's Hellenics and See also:Euripides in 15o3; See also:Demosthenes in 1504. The troubles of See also:Italy, which pressed heavily on Venice at this See also:epoch, suspended Aldo's labours for a while. But in 1508 he resumed his See also:series with an edition of the See also:minor Greek orators; and in 1509 appeared the lesser works of See also:Plutarch. Then came another stoppage. The See also:league of Cambray had driven Venice back to her lagoons, and all the forces of the See also:republic were concentrated on a struggle to the See also:death with the allied See also:powers of See also:Europe. In 1513 Aldo reappeared with See also:Plato, which he dedicated to See also:Leo X. in a See also:preface eloquently and earnestly comparing the miseries of warfare and the woes of Italy with the See also:sublime and tranquil See also:objects of the student's See also:life. See also:Pindar, See also:Hesychius, and See also:Athenaeus followed in 1514. These See also:complete the See also:list of Aldo's See also:prime services to Greek literature. But it may be well in this See also:place to observe that his successors continued his work by giving See also:Pausanias, See also:Strabo, See also:Aeschylus, See also:Galen, See also:Hippocrates and See also:Longinus to the world in first editions. Omission has been made of Aldo's reprints, in See also:order that the See also:attention of the reader might be concentrated on his labours in editing Greek classics from MSS. Other presses were at work in Italy; and, as the classics issued from Florence, Rome or Milan, Aldo took them up, bestowing in each See also:case fresh industry upon the See also:collation of codices and the correction of texts. Nor was the Aldine press idle in regard to Latin and Italian classics.

The Asolani of See also:

Bembo, the collected writings of Poliziano, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, See also:Dante's Divine See also:Comedy, See also:Petrarch's poems, a collection of See also:early Latin poets of the See also:Christian era, the letters of the younger See also:Pliny, the poems of See also:Pontanus, Sannazzaro's See also:Arcadia, See also:Quintilian, See also:Valerius See also:Maximus, and the Adagia of See also:Erasmus were printed, either in first editions, or with a beauty of type and See also:paper never reached before, between the years 1495 and 1514. For these Italian and Latin editions Aldo had the elegant type struck which bears his name. It is said to have been copied from Petrarch's See also:handwriting, and was See also:cast under the direction of See also:Francesco da See also:Bologna, who has been identified by See also:Panizzi with See also:Francia the painter. Aldo's See also:enthusiasm for Greek literature was not confined to the printing-See also:room. Whatever the students of this See also: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. In his own days Aldo's learning won the hearty See also:acknowledgment of ripe scholars. To his fellow workers he was uniformly generous, See also:free from See also:jealousy, and prodigal of praise. While aiming at that excellence of See also:typography which renders his editions the treasures of the See also:book-See also:collector, he strove at the same time to make them cheap. We may perhaps roughly estimate the current See also:price of his See also:pocket series of Greek, Latin and Italian classics, begun in 15o1, at 2S. per volume of our See also:present See also:money. The five volumes of the Aristotle cost about a8. His See also:great undertaking was carried on under continual difficulties, arising from strikes among his workmen, the piracies of rivals, and the interruptions of See also:war. When he died, bequeathing Greek literature as an inalienable See also:possession to the world, he was a poor See also:man.

In order to promote Greek studies, Aldo founded an See also:

academy of Hellenists in 1500 under the See also:title of the New Academy. Its rules were written in Greek. Its members were obliged to speak Greek. Their names were Hellenized, and their See also:official titles were Greek. The See also:biographies of all the famous men who were enrolled in this academy must be sought in the pages of See also:Didot's Alde Manuce. It is enough here to mention that they included Erasmus and the See also:English See also:Linacre. In 1499 Aldo married Maria, daughter of See also:Andrea Torresano of Asola. Andrea had already bought the press established by See also:Nicholas Jenson at Venice. Therefore Aldo's See also:marriage combined two important See also:publishing firms. Henceforth the names Aldus and Asolanus were associated on the title pages of the Aldine publications; and after Aldo's death in 1515, Andrea and his two sons carried on the business during the minority of Aldo's See also:children. The See also:device of the See also:dolphin and the See also:anchor, and the See also:motto festina lente, which indicated quickness combined with firmness in the See also:execution of a great See also:scheme, were never wholly abandoned by the Aldines until the expiration of their See also:firm in the third See also:generation. 2.

See also:

PAULUS MANUTIUS (1512–1574). By his marriage with Maria Torresano, Aldo had three sons, the youngest of whom, See also:Paolo, was born in 1512. He had the misfortune to lose his See also:father at the See also:age of two. After this event his grandfather and two uncles, the three Asolani, carried on the Aldine press, while Paolo prosecuted his early studies at Venice. Excessive application hurt his See also:health, which remained weak during the See also:rest :of his life. At the age of twenty-one he had acquired a solid reputation for scholarship and learning. In 1533 Paolo undertook the conduct of his father's business, which had latterly been much neglected by his uncles. In the See also:interregnum between Aldo's death and Paolo's See also:succession (1514–1533) the Asolani continued to issue books, the best of which were Latin classics. But, though their publications See also:count a large number of first editions, and some are works of considerable magnitude, they were not brought out with the scholarly perfection at which Aldo aimed. The Asolani attempted to perform the whole duties of editing, and to reserve all its honours for themselves, dispensing with the service of competent collaborators. The result was that some of their editions, especially their Aeschylus of 1518, are singularly See also:bad. Paolo determined to restore the glories of the See also:house, and in 1540 he separated from his uncles.

The See also:

field of Greek literature having been well-nigh exhausted, he devoted himself principally to the Latin classics. He was a passionate Ciceronian, and perhaps his chief contributions to scholarship are the corrected editions of See also:Cicero's letters and orations, his own epistles in a Ciceronian See also:style, and his Latin version of Demosthenes. Throughout his life he combined the occupations of a student and a printer, winning an even higher celebrity in the former field than his father had done. Four See also:treatises from his See also:pen on See also:Roman antiquities deserve to be commemorated for their erudition no less than for the elegance of their Latinity. Several Italian cities contended for the possession of so rare a man; and he received tempting offers from the See also:Spanish See also:court. Yet his life was a See also:long struggle with pecuniary difficulties. To prepare correct editions of the classics, and to See also:print them in a splendid style, has always been a costly undertaking. And, though Paolo's publications were highly esteemed, their See also:sale was slow. In 1556 he received for a time See also:external support from the Venetian Academy, founded by Federigo Badoaro. But Badoaro failed disgracefully in 1559, and the academy was See also:extinct in 1562. Meanwhile Paolo had established his See also:brother, See also:Antonio, a man of See also:good parts but indifferent conduct, in a printing See also:office and book See also:shop at Bologna. Antonio died in 1559, having been a source of trouble andexpense to Paolo during the last four years of his life.

Other pecuniary embarrassments arose from a See also:

contract for supplying See also:fish to Venice, into which Paolo had somewhat strangely entered with the See also:government. In 1561 See also:pope See also:Pius IV. invited him to Rome, offering him a yearly See also:stipend of 500 ducats, and under-taking to establish and maintain his press there. The profits on publications were to be divided between Paolo Manuzio and the Apostolic See also:camera. Paolo accepted the invitation, and spent the larger portion of his life, under three papacies, with varying fortunes, in the See also:city of Rome. I11-health, the commercial interests he had See also:left behind at Venice, and the coldness shown him by pope Pius V., induced him at various times and for several reasons to leave Rome. As was natural, his editions after his removal to Rome were mostly Latin works of See also:theology and Biblical or patristic literature. Paolo married Caterina Odoni in 1546. She brought him three sons and one daughter. His eldest son, the younger Aldus, succeeded him in the management of the Venetian printing house when his father settled at Rome in 1561. Paolo had never been a strong man, and his health was overtaxed with studies and commercial worries. Yet he lived into his sixty-second See also:year, and died at Rome in 1594. 3.

ALDUS MANUTIUS, JUNIOR (1547–1597). The younger Aldo born in the year after his father Paolo's marriage, proved what is called an See also:

infant See also:prodigy. When he was nine years old his name was placed upon the title See also:page of the famous Eleganze della lingua Toscana .e See also:Latina. The Eleganze was probably a book made for his instruction and in his See also:company by his father. In 1561, at the age of fourteen, he produced a work upon Latin spelling, called Orthographiae ratio. During a visit to his father at Rome in the next year he was able to improve this See also:treatise by the study of See also:inscriptions, and in 1575 he completed his labours in the same field by the publication of an See also:Epitome orthographiae. Whether Aldo was the See also:sole composer of the work on spelling, in its first edition, may be doubted; but he appropriated the subject and made it his own. Probably his greatest service to scholarship is this See also:analysis of the principles of See also:orthography in Latin. Aldo remained at Venice, studying literature and superintending the Aldine press. In 1572 he married Francesca Lucrezia daughter of Bartolommeo Giunta, and great-grandchild of the first Giunta, who founded the famous printing house in Venice. This was an See also:alliance which augured well of the Giunta for the future of the Aldines, especially as Aldo had recently found time to publish a new revised edition of Velleius Paterculus. Two years later the death of his father at Rome placed Aldo at the See also:head of the firm.

In See also:

concert with the Giunta, he now edited an extensive collection of Italian letters, and in 1576 he published his commentary upon the Ars poetica of See also:Horace. About the same time, that is to say, about the year 1576, he was appointed See also:professor of literature to the Cancelleria at Venice. The Aldine press continued through this See also:period to issue books, but none of See also:signal merit; and in 1585 Aldo determined to quit his native city for Bologna, where he occupied the See also:chair of eloquence for a few months. In 1587 he left Bologna for See also:Pisa, and there, in his quality of professor, he made the curious See also:mistake of printing See also:Alberti's comedy Philodoxius as a work of the classic See also:Lepidus. See also:Sixtus V. See also:drew him in 1588 from See also:Tuscany to Rome; and at Rome he hoped to make a permanent See also:settlement as lecturer. But his public lessons were See also:ill attended, and he soon See also:fell back upon his old vocation of publisher under the patronage of a new pope, See also:Clement VIII. In 1597 he died, leaving children, but none who cared or had capacity to carry on the Aldine press. Aldo himself, though a precocious student, a scholar of no mean ability, and a publisher of some distinction, was the least remarkable of the three men who gave books to the public under the old Aldine See also:ensign. This does not of See also:necessity mean that we should adopt See also:Scaliger's critique of the younger Aldo without See also:reservation. Scaliger called him " a poverty-stricken See also:talent, slow in operation; his work is very See also:commonplace; he aped his father." What is true in this remark lies partly in the fact that scholarship in Aldo's days had flown beyond the See also:Alps, where a new growth of erudition, on a basis different from that of the Italian See also:Renaissance, had begun. See Renouard's Annales de l'imprimerie See also:des Aldes (See also:Paris, 1834) Didot's Aide Manuce (Paris, 1873) ; Omont's See also:Catalogue of Aldine publications (Paris, 1892). (J.

A.

End of Article: MANUTIUS

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