The Aldine Editions

The Aldine Editions of certain books are so called in honor of one Aldus Manutius, an Italian scholar (born in 1450), who became tutor to a young prince of Carpi,--Alberto Pio. Aldus, who was a classical enthusiast, was seized with an ambition to secure the literature of ancient Greece from further accident by committing its chief masterpieces to type. He selected Venice as the proper place to set up his publishing establishment, and began the work with money advanced for the purpose by his pupil, whom he had succeeded in imbuing with a good deal of his own intensity of feeling. Beginning in 1490, he issued editions of the "Hero and Leander" of Musaeus, the "Galeomyomachia," and the Greek Psalter. In 1495 he issued the first volume of his "Aristotle," and completed the work in 1498. Nine comedies of Aristophanes appeared in the latter year, and "Thucydides," "Sophocles" and "Herodotus" followed in 1502. Xenophon's "Hellenics" and "Euripedes" in 1503, and "Demosthenes" in 1504. The hostilities then prevailing in Italy soon pressed heavily on the city of Venice, and caused a suspension of the activity of the Aldine press for a few years, but in 1508 it was resumed, and new treasures were turned out with all practicable rapidity. In order to make his edition of the Greek classics perfect, Aldus employed none but Greeks to assist him. The scholars who collected and annotated his text, the compositors who set his type, the men who read and revised his proofs, were all of that nationality, and most of them as devoutly interested in his work as he. In some cases he entertained under his own roof as many as thirty of his assistants at one time, not including in this number the craftsmen who lent him merely the aid of their trained hands. The work of Aldus was, from first to last, a labor of love; he died a poor man, leaving his father-in-law and his brother-in-law to continue the work during the minority of his children, who, when they were old enough, were taken into partnership. The firm thus formed lasted until the third generation, and was then allowed to expire. The device of the dolphin and anchor, and the motto Festina lente, which were early adopted as a trademark, and were intended to indicate quickness combined with firmness in the execution of a great scheme, were never wholly abandoned till the house was dissolved.