Aldine edition

“ This popularizing of literature and of classical learning did not meet with universal favor amongst his countrymen. We read of one Italian who warned Aldus that if he kept on spreading Italian scholarship beyond the Alps at nominal prices the outer barbarians would no longer come to Italy to study Greek, but would stay at home and read their Aldine editions without adding a penny to the income of Italian cities. ”

“ When his father's death had made him the head of the press he continued for some years to employ the same device. For the Livy of 1592, much inferior to the present edition, and of interest only as showing the decline into which the Aldine press, and the Italian presses in general, had fallen at the end of the sixteenth century, he was only indirectly responsible. He left Venice in 1585 and spent the last years of his life at Rome, as professor of belles-lettres and joint director of the Vatican press. ”

“ A catalogue (56 pp. quarto) was published in the year 1832. Amongst them are many early and curious volumes in poetry and history. Other collections of MSS. were sold by the same collector to the British Museum and to the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh.
A large number of Aldines were obtained at the sale of the collection of M. Renouard, the Aldine bibliographer, which took place in London, June 26-30. And the rare first edition of John Knox's Historie of the Church of Scotland was purchased for sixteen guineas. ”

“ According to Vasari and a document discovered by Calvi, his death took place on the 6th of January, 1517. [N] Francesco Raibolini was at once, in common with many of his compeers, goldsmith and type-cutter, as well as a painter, and to his skilful hands, Aldus, whose name they bear, was indebted for his characters. From Panizzi, we learn that, “at the end of the short Preface prefixed by Aldus to his first edition of Virgil (1501) , printed in the cursive or secretarial characters manum mentientes, afterwards generally known by the name of Aldine, are the following three verses ”

“ Aldus, the son of Paulus, who is known among bibliographers as "the younger," had not perhaps the same opportunities as were afforded to his predecessors. The art of printing had advanced universally, and there was not so much room for improvement as there had been formerly. He printed in a good, but by no means exceptional, style, from 1574 until the time of his death in 1597, when the Aldine press ceased to exist. During a period of 103 years some 823 books had been issued, many of which are among the prizes of book collecting. ”

“ Aldine at Rome, before remembred, disproued, and contraried both the said figures and name) and seek to disproue it, as doth (I say not almost, but I am affraid altogether) leade many to adore the very picture of such things, as are but the fictions of superstitious brains: for the flower it selfe is farre differing from their figure, as both Aldine in the aforesaid booke, and Robinus at Paris in his Theatrum Floræ, doe set forth; the flowers and leaues being drawne to the life, and there exhibited, which I hope may satisfie all men, that will not be perpetually obstinate and contentious. ”

“ The Horæ in Greek, printed by Aldus in 16mo in 1497, is a volume which, from its language, size, and rarity, is of the greatest importance for the literary and religious history of the time when it was printed. It is, therefore, in Mr. Grenville's library. The Virgil of 1501 is not only an elegant book, but it is the first book printed with that peculiar Italic, known as Aldine, and the first volume which Aldus printed, "forma enchiridii," as he called it, being expressly adapted to give poor scholars the means of purchasing for a small sum the works of the classical writers. ”

“ I have instructed Basa to burn all the sheets that have been printed, and to print these signatures again, with a proper selection of type and on decent paper.”
Aldus the younger seems never to have had his heart fairly in his business, and under his management (or lack of management) , the prestige of the Aldine Press in Venice fell off sadly. He appears to have been extravagant, [445] or at least uncalculating, in his expenditures, and was also spending moneys which he could ill afford, not like his grandfather for manuscripts and type, but for clothes and artistic curiosities. ”

“ No artist was ever more scrupulously bent on giving the best possible form, the utmost accuracy, to every detail of his work. When we consider the beauty of the Aldine volumes, and the critical excellence of their texts, we may fairly be astonished at their prices. The Musæus was sold for something under one shilling of our money, the Theocritus for something under two shillings. ”

“ Andrea, some years earlier, had bought the press established by Nicholas Jenson in Venice, so that Aldo's marriage to his daughter combined the interests of two important firms. Henceforth the names of Aldus and of Asolanus were associated on the title-pages of the Aldine publications. When Aldo died in 1514 (1515 new style) , he left three sons—Manutio, in orders at Asola; Antonio, a bookseller at Bologna; [364] and Paolo Manuzio. The last of these sons, born at Venice in 1512, was educated by his grandfather Andrea till the year of the old man's death (1529) . ”

“ Aldus had possibly read the remark of Callimachus, the librarian of the Alexandrian library in 290 B.C., that “A big book is a big nuisance.” These Aldine classics, while printed in octavo (i. e., upon a sheet folded in eights) , were of a size corresponding more nearly to what would to-day be known as a sixteenmo, the size of the sheet of paper being smaller than that used to-day. Aldus had no presses which would print sheets large enough to fold in sixteen or even in twelve. ”

“ Aldus thanked them for their courtesy, and in sending them as an acknowledgment copies of his Horace and Virgil, he asked them to bring him into communication with any scholarly Germans who were interested in the classics. Aldus did not, however, consider it wise to print the ode of eulogy that Celtes had written upon the Emperor Maximilian, because he was afraid of causing offence to the Bohemians and Hungarians through [436] whose scholars he had secured not a few rare manuscripts.
Throughout Germany the productions of the Aldine presses were received with enthusiasm. ”

“ The first as a compositor, the second as a reader, the third as a scribe, the fourth as editor of the Greek Orators, rendered Aldo effective assistance. Among Italians, Pietro Bembo, Aleander, and Alberto Pio occupied positions of honorary distinction rather than of active industry. Those who worked in earnest for the Aldine press were chiefly Venetians. Girolamo Avanzi, professor of philosophy at Padua, revised the texts of Catullus, Seneca, and Ausonius. Andrea Navagero, the noble Venetian poet, corrected Lucretius, Ovid, Terence, Quintilian, Horace, and Virgil. ”

“ As we have noted, Aldus printed the Hypnerotomachia on commission, and save for two discreditably bad cuts in his Musaeus and a rather fine portrait of S. Catherine of Siena in his edition of her Letters printed in 1500, he troubled himself with no other illustrations. In his larger works he revived the memory of the stately folios of Jenson, and in his popular editions sought no other adornment than the beauty of his italic type. If pictures were needed to make a book more acceptable to a [Pg 104] rich patron, he did not disdain to have recourse to the illuminator. ”

“ A circumstance may be here mentioned, which had so much influence in facilitating the acquisition of knowledge, that it renders the year 1501 a sort of epoch in literary history. He that year not only introduced a new Italic character, called Aldine, more easily read perhaps than his Roman letters, which are somewhat rude; but, what was of more importance, began to print in a small octavo or duodecimo form, instead of the cumbrous and expensive folios that had been principally in use. ”

“ Aldines do not retain their high place in the estimation of collectors so firmly as the books of the Elzevirs. The latter published early and beautiful editions of the contemporary French classics, while the Aldines chiefly printed Latin and Greek books, and works of erudition. Neither classics nor the superseded philology of the sixteenth century are now so much valued as they once were. The classics are, we say it with pain, almost a drug in the market. New frivolities have usurped their place. ”

“ The good creature brought me back to life, and interested Signora Aldini in my fate. I speedily recovered from the effects of my fasting, and my persecutor, appeased by that expiation, accepted my acknowledgment of my wrong-doing, and my somewhat abrupt, but sincere expression of regret. My father, on learning from my master that I had disappeared, had come to Venice. He frowned when Signora Aldini expressed a purpose to take me into her service. He was a rough-mannered man, but proud and independent. ”

“ My pride, already so irritable in itself, became more and more sensitive every day at the appearance of the vain, stilted, empty-headed creatures who presumed to pay court to me. I clung to the virtues of noble birth, because I had imagined up to that time that illustrious families were superior to others in courage, merit, courtesy and liberality. I had not seen the nobility except in the portrait gallery of the Aldini Palace. There my ancestors appeared before me in all their glory, with all their great feats of arms or pious deeds recorded on oaken bas-reliefs. ”

“ Never did the bibliomaniac's eye alight upon 'sweeter copies'—as the phrase is; and never did the bibliomaniacal barometer rise higher than at this sale! The most marked phrensy characterized it. A copy of the Editio Princeps of Homer (by no means a first-rate one) brought 92l.: and all the Aldine Classics produced such an electricity of sensation that buyers stuck at nothing to embrace them! Do not let it hence be said that black-letter lore is the only fashionable pursuit of the present age of book-collectors. ”

“ Gaza was a native of Greece, and was for a time associated with the Aldine Press as a Greek editor.
In 1500, Aldus married the daughter of the printer Andrea Torresano of Asola, previously referred to as the successor of the Frenchman Jenson and the purchaser of Jenson’s matrices. In 1507, the two printing concerns were united, and the savings of Torresano were utilised to strengthen the resources of Aldus, which had become impaired, probably through his too great optimism and publishing enterprise. ”

“ Difficult as the subject of the Elzevir press is, that of the Aldine press is more so. It was established much earlier—viz., about 1489—and examples are more numerous and altogether more confusing. As a general rule they are also more expensive, and none but rich collectors can afford to compete for examples of the best class. Still, good specimens may occasionally be got for reasonable sums; and as a guide to the subject as a whole Renouard's Annales de l'Imprimerie des Alde (1st ed., 2 vols., Paris, 1803; 2nd, 3 vols., ib., 1825; 3rd, 1 vol., ib., 1834) occupies a unique position. ”

“ The petition is curious, for Aldus went as far as to suggest to the Ten the penalties to be incurred by any one who defrauded him of his rights, and they were by no means light.
He dreamed of never allowing any work to leave his press which was less than perfect at all points. When he meditated the printing of a Greek classic, he gathered about him all the most conscientious men of letters in Venice; such men as Sabellico and Sanudo, the highly accomplished Cardinal Bembo, and Andrea Navagero all worked at comparing the best texts, in order to produce one that should be beyond criticism. ”

“ The changes in the second edition are few and are largely confined to the correction of obvious misprints. There is no point in substituting agere for facere. I should attribute this innovation to a careless compositor, who tried to memorize too large a bit of text, rather than to an emending editor. At all events, it has no bearing on our immediate concern.
The striking similarity, therefore, between Aldus’s text and that of our fragment confirms our surmise that the latter may be a part of that ancient manuscript which he professes to have used in his edition. ”

“ It was his custom (well illustrated in the present collection) to enter on the fly-leaf of each purchase the source and the cost, adding as a separate item the binding, often by Roger Payne, and to affix his name and the date. His visé "Collat: & complet:" is seldom wanting and often bibliographical notes and references to authorities are added. Justinian's Novellae, printed by Schoeffer, and all the Aldine press books save one are from the library gathered at Syston Park, Lincolnshire, [viii] by Sir John Thorold and his son, Sir John Hayford Thorold, between 1775 and 1831 and sold in 1884. ”

“ In the days of Italian humanism, a scholar might call almost any book a codex pervetustus if it supplied new readings for his edition and its script seemed unusual. As Professor Merrill remarks:3
“The extreme age that Aldus was disposed to attribute to the manuscript will, of course, occasion no wonder in the minds of those who are familiar with the vague notions on such matters that prevailed among scholars before the study of palaeography had been developed into somewhat of a science. ”

“ Had it been, after all, a life in itself less commonplace than theirs—that life, the trivial details of which their Horace had touched so daintily, gilded with real gold words?
Regular, submissive, dutiful to play also, Aldy meantime enjoys his triumphs in the Green Court; loves best however to run a paper-chase afar over the marshes, till you come in sight, or within scent, of the sea, in the autumn twilight ”