Talk of nothing but business, and dispatch that business quickly
Placard on the door of the Aldine Press (Quotation Page).
I chose to research Aldus Manutius for sentimental reasons: the first software I fell in love with was Aldus Persuasion (PowerPoint is but a pale imitation of the original), followed immediately by Freehand and PageMaker. All this long before those programs were sold to Adobe and Macromedia.
While Aldus Manutius was justly famous as a grammarian and humanist, his greatest contributions to the world of information were as a typographer and editor. Aldus was tutor to Alberto Pio, Prince of Capri, who later funded the Aldine Press in Venice. It was at Aldine Press that innovations in typography, printing and publishing opened the world of Greek and Roman classics to the masses.
Aldus founded the Philhellenic Academy and contributed to the study and cultivation of Greek letters in Italy. He edited Greek, Latin and vernacular editions, and had other editions prepared for him by the best scholars in these languages and made Greek the official language of his business and household. To ensure accuracy in his publications, Aldus retained Greek scholars as editors, proofreaders and compositors. Aldus's house became a gathering-place for the learned Greek scholars of the time. The men he employed were almost all Greeks and the prefaces to his great editions were almost always written in Greek.
His books are called Aldine and bear his mark, a dolphin intertwined with an anchor (seen at the left of this page). Aldus had taken this symbol and the ancient proverb "Festina lente" (Hurry up slowly) as Aldine's motto.
Significant publications
Aldus devoted himself to publishing the Greek and Roman classics. Between the years 1494 and 1515 thirty-three first editions of all the greatest Greek authors were issued from the Aldine press, most notably a five-volume set of the works of Aristotle, completed in 1498. In 1493, or before that, the "Hero and Leander" of Musæus was published. This was followed by the famous first edition of Aristotle, the first volume appearing in 1495, and the remaining four volumes in 1497 and 1498. The work was dedicated by Aldus to his patron, Alberto Pio.
Within the next few years first editions of Aristophanes Thucydides, Sophocles, Herodotus, Xenophon, Euripides, Demosthenes, Plato, Pindar, and others were produced at Venice. Besides these Greek authors, many Latin and Italian publications were put forth. The revolutionary impact of Aldus' editions is readily apparent in the elegant portable octavo of his 1502 Dante, printed in italic type. The Dutch scholar, Erasmus, went to Aldine Press in 1508 to oversee the publication of his "Proverbs."
Aldus published the first known book catalogue in 1498. Listed in his catalogues are many Italian translations of Latin classics and Italian editions of Petrarch and Bocaccio.
Innovations
Aldus Manutius introduced many innovations into the world of printing. Aldus' desire to economically produce beautiful books of the classics led to the invention of the italic. Combined with the octavo page, cost of printing was reduced, making such books affordable to the public, a service especially welcomed by travelling scholars. The first use of this technique was in an octavo edition of Virgil in 1501. The former goldsmith, Francesco Griffi da Bologna, cut the famous italic types, which were supposedly modeled on the handwriting of Petrarch.
These portable and beautiful publications gave the middle classes direct access to the classics and the demand for works in Greek, Latin and the vernacular grew. "In the cities among the middle classes, and in the courts, vernacular poetry was flourishing among both gentlemen and gentlewomen -- giving rise, for the first time in the Italian tradition, to a distinguished group of women poets" (Typography).
Aldus Manutius died February 6, 1515. "No rival, nor imitator, ever achieved the excellence of Aldus Manutius, the Scholar Printer. He was the last true innovator in the field of type design. As Updike writes: 'With the Aldine Italic, originality of ideas in type forms ceases'" (Typography).
See examples of Aldus Manutius's work from the Newberry Library and the Cary Graphic Arts Collection.
References:
The Quotations Page. Available at http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Aldus_Manutius/
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2001. Available at http://www.bartleby.com/65/al/AldusMan.html
Typography and Its Makers. Available at http://users.1st.net/jweinstein/AA210f/Type210/Aldus.html
Catholic Encyclopedia. Available at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09633b.htm
ItalNet Projects. Available at http://www.italnet.nd.edu/Dante/text/1502.venice.aldus.html
Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Available at http://www.lib.byu.edu/~aldine/54Aldus.html