In 1462 Adolph of Na.s.sau pillaged Maintz and dispersed its printers over Europe. Three years later two Germans, by name Sweynheim and Pannartz, who had worked under Fust, set up a press in Subbiaco, a little village of the Sabine mountains. Here, in October 1465, the first edition of Lactantius saw the light. The German printers soon afterwards removed from Subbiaco, and settled, under the protection of the Ma.s.simi, in Rome, where they continued to issue Latin authors from their press.[342] In 1646 John of Spires established himself at Venice. He was soon afterwards joined by his brother Vindelino (so the Italians write the name) and by Nicholas Jenson, the Frenchman.
Florence had no press till 1471, when Bernardo Cennini printed the commentary of Servius on Virgil"s "Bucolics." The "Georgics" and "aeneid" appeared in the following year. To Cennini, however, belongs the honour of having been the first Italian to cast his own type. Like many other ill.u.s.trious artificers, he was by trade a goldsmith; in his address to the reader he styles himself _aurifex omnium judicio praestantissimus_, adding, with reference to the typography, _expressis ante calide caracteribus ac deinde fusis literis volumen hoc primum impresserunt_. The last sentence of the address should also be quoted: _Florentinis ingeniis nil ardui est_. Other printers opened workshops in Florence within the course of a few years--John of Maintz in 1472, Nicholas of Breslau in 1477, Antonio Miscomini in 1481, and Lorenzo Alopa of Venice, who gave Homer with Greek type to the world in 1488.
Still, Florence had been antic.i.p.ated by many other cities; for when once the new art took root in Italy, it spread like wild fire.
Omitting smaller places from the calculation, it has been reckoned that, before the year 1500, 4,987 books were printed in Italy, of which 298 are claimed by Bologna, 300 by Florence, 629 by Milan, 929 by Rome, and 2,835 by Venice. The disproportion between the activity of Florence and of Venice in the book trade deserves to be noticed, though how it should be explained I hardly know. Fifty towns and numbers of insignificant burghs--Pinerolo, Savona, Pieve di Sacco, Cividale, Soncino, Chiva.s.so, Scandiano, for example--could boast of local presses. Ambulant printers established their machinery for half a year or so in a remote village, printed what came to hand there, and moved on.
[Footnote 342: From a memorial presented by these printers to Sixtus IV. in 1472 we ascertain some facts about their industry. They had at that date printed in all 12,495 volumes. It was their custom to issue 265 copies each edition; the double of that number for Virgil, Cicero"s separate works, and theological books in request. Cantu, _Lett. It._ p. 112. See Cantu, p. 110, for details of the earliest Latin books.]
While scholars rejoiced in the art that, to quote the word of one of them, "had saved the labour of their aching joints," the copyists complained that their occupation would be taken from them. The whistle of the locomotive at the beginning of this century was not more afflicting to stage-coachmen than the creaking of the wooden printing press to those poor scribes. Yet, however quickly a labour-saving invention may spread, there is generally time for the superseded industry to die an easy death, and for artisans to find employment in the new trade. Vespasiano, who during twenty-six years survived the first book printed in Florence, could even afford to despise the press.[343] The great n.o.bles, on whose patronage he depended, did not suddenly transfer their custom from the scribe to the compositor; nor was it to be expected that so essentially a democratic art as printing should find immediate favour with the aristocracy. A prince with a library of MSS. worth 40,000 ducats hated the machine that put an equal number of more readable volumes within the reach of moderate competency. Moreover, a certain suspicion of subversiveness and license clung about the press. This was to some extent justified by fact, since the press was destined to be the most formidable engine of the modern reason. Ecclesiastics, again, questioned whether the promiscuous multiplication of books were pious; and Alexander VI.
stretched his hand out to coerce the printer"s devil. To check the spread of printing would, however, have overtaxed the powers of any human tyranny. All that the Church could do was to place its productions under episcopal control.
[Footnote 343: See above, p. 220.]
Though the copyists of MSS. were thrown out of work by the printing press, it gave important stimulus to other industries in Italy. The paper mills of Fabriano and of Colle in the Val d"Elsa became valuable properties;[344] compositors and readers began to form a separate cla.s.s of artisans, while needy scholars found a market for their talents in the houses of the publishers. When we consider the amount of literary work that had to be performed before Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts could be prepared for the press, the difficulty of procuring correct copies of authoritative codices, and the scrupulous attention expended upon proof sheets, we are able to understand that men who lived by learning found the new art profitable.
[Footnote 344: It is supposed that the earliest paper factory established in Italy was at Fabriano. Colle, a little town near Volterra, made paper from a remote period; by a deed, dated March 6, 1377, now preserved in the Florentine Archivio Diplomatico, one Colo da Colle rented a fall of water there _et gualcheriam ad faciendas cartas_ for twenty years. Both places are still celebrated for their paper mills.]
Instead of having previous editions to work upon, the publishers were obliged, in the first instance, to collect MSS. For this purpose they either travelled themselves from city to city, or employed competent amanuenses. Next, it was necessary to study the philosophers, poets, historians, mathematicians, and mystics, whose works they intended to print, in order that no mistake in the sense of the words should be made. Orthography and punctuation had to be fixed; and between many readings only one could be adopted. Giving a first edition to the world involved far more anxiety on these points than the reproduction of a book already often printed. No one man could accomplish such tasks alone. Therefore we find that scores of learned men were a.s.sociated together for the purpose, living under the same roof, revising the copy for the compositor, overlooking the men at work, reading the text aloud, and correcting the proofs with a vigilance that is but little needed nowadays. All this labour, moreover, was accomplished without the aid of grammars, lexicons, and other aids.
Truly we may say without exaggeration that the Aldi of Venice and the Stephani of Paris are more worthy of commemoration for services rendered through scholarship to humanity than those modern castigators of ancient texts, the Porsons and the Lachmanns, whose names are on every lip. The enthusiasm of discovery, and the rich field for original industry offered to those early editors, may be reckoned as compensation for their otherwise overwhelming toil.
Teobaldo Mannucci, better known as Aldo Manuzio, was born in 1450 at Sermoneta, near Velletri. After residing as a client in the princely house of Carpi, he added the name Pio to his patronymic, and signed his publications with the full description, _Aldus Pius Manutius Roma.n.u.s et Philh.e.l.len_, [Greek: Aldos ho Manoutios Romaios kai Philellen]. He studied Latin at Rome under Gasparino da Verona, and Greek at Ferrara under Guarino da Verona, to whom he dedicated his Theocritus in 1495. Having qualified himself for undertaking the work of tutor or professor, according to the custom of the century, and having made friends with many of the princ.i.p.al Italian scholars, he went in 1482 to reside at Mirandola with his old friend and fellow student, Giovanni Pico. There he stayed two years, enjoying the society of the Phoenix of his age, and continuing his Greek studies in concert with Emmanuel Adramyttenos, a learned Cretan. Before Pico removed to Florence he procured for Aldo the post of tutor to his nephews Alberto and Lionello Pio. Carpi had owned the family of Pio for its masters since the thirteenth century, when they rose to power, like many of the Lombard n.o.bles, by adroit use of Imperial privileges.[345] This little city, placed midway between Correggio, Mirandola, and Modena, is so insignificant that its name has been omitted from the index to Murray"s handbook; nor is there indeed much but the memory of Aldo and Alberto Pio, and a church built by Balda.s.sare Peruzzi, to recommend it to the notice of a traveller.
Under the tuition of Aldo the two young princes became excellent scholars. Alberto in particular proved, by his apt.i.tude for philosophical studies, that he had inherited from his mother, the sister of Giovanni Pico, something of the spirit of Mirandola. When Aldus published his great edition of Aristotle, he inscribed it to his former pupil with a Greek dedication, in which he styled him [Greek: to ton onton eraste]. There can be no doubt that Alberto"s knowledge of Greek language and philosophy was far more thorough than that of many more belauded princes of the age. Yet he had but little opportunity for the quiet prosecution of cla.s.sical studies, or for the patronage of learned men at Carpi. Driven from his patrimony by the Imperialists, he died at Paris in 1530, after a life spent in foreign service and diplomatic offices of trust. The bronze monument for his tomb may still be seen[346] in the Gallery of the Louvre. The princely scholar, clad in rich Renaissance armour, is reclining with his head supported by his right hand; the left holds an open book. The att.i.tude of melancholy meditation, the ornamental but useless cuira.s.s, and the volume open while the scabbard of the sword is shut, add to the portrait of this prince in exile the value of an allegory. Such symbols suited the genius of Italy during the age of foreign invaders.
[Footnote 345: Sansovino, in his _Famiglie Ill.u.s.tri_, after giving a fabulous pedigree of the Pio family, dates their signorial importance from the reign of Frederick II.]
[Footnote 346: Executed for the Church of the Cordeliers by Paulus Pontius.]
To Alberto Pio the world owes a debt of grat.i.tude, inasmuch as he supplied Aldo with the funds necessary for starting his printing press, and gave him lands at Carpi, where his family were educated.
When Aldo conceived the ambitious project of printing the whole literature of Greece, four Italian towns could already claim the honours of Greek publications. Milan takes the lead. In 1476 the Grammar of Lascaris was printed there by Dionysius Paravisini, with the aid of Demetrius of Crete.[347] In 1480 Esop and Theocritus appeared, with no publisher"s name. In 1486 two Cretans, Alexander and Laonicenus, edited a Greek psalter. In 1493 Isocrates, prepared by Demetrius Chalcondylas, was issued by Henry the German and Sebastian of Pontremolo. Next comes Venice, where, as early as 1484, the "Erotemata" of Chrysoloras had been produced by a certain Peregrinus Bononiensis. Vicenza followed in 1488 with a reprint of Lascaris"s Grammar due to Leonard Achates of Basle, and in 1490 with a reprint of the "Erotemata." Florence, as we have already seen, gave Homer to the world in 1488. Demetrius Chalcondylas revised the text; Demetrius the Cretan supplied the models for the types; Alopa of Venice was the publisher. It will be remarked that, with the exception of Homer and Theocritus, no true cla.s.sic of the first magnitude had appeared before the foundation of the Aldine Press. I may also add that the Milanese Isocrates was really contemporaneous with the Musaeus, Galeomyomachia, and Psalter issued by Aldo as precursors of his Greek library--[Greek: Prodromoi tes h.e.l.lenikes bibliothekes]. This fact makes his thirty-three first editions of all the greatest and most voluminous Greek authors between 1494 and 1515 all the more remarkable.
[Footnote 347: Poliziano"s epigram addressed to these earliest Greek printers may be quoted here:
Qui colis Aonidas, Grajos quoque volve libellos; Namque illas genuit Graecia, non Latium.
En Paravisinus quanta hos Dionysius arte Imprimit, en quanto cernitis ingenio!
Te quoque, Demetri, ponto circ.u.msona Crete Tanti operis n.o.bis edidit artificem.
Turce, quid insultas? tu Graeca volumina perdis; Hi pariunt: hydrae nunc age colla seca!]
It was at Carpi in 1490 that Aldo finally matured his project of establishing a Greek press. His patrons desired him to found it in their castle of Novi; but Aldo judged rightly that at Venice he would be more secure from the disturbances of warfare, as well as more conveniently situated for engaging the a.s.sistance of Greek scholars and compositors. Accordingly, he took a house, and settled near S.
Agostino. This house speedily became a Greek colony. It may be inferred from Aldo"s directions to the printers that his trade was carried on almost entirely by Greeks, and that Greek was the language of his household. The instructions to the binders as to the order of the sheets and mode of st.i.tching were given in Greek; and many curious Greek phrases appear to have sprung up to meet the exigencies of the new industry. Thus we find [Greek: hina h.e.l.lenisti syndethesetai] for "Greek st.i.tching," and [Greek: katt.i.terine cheiri] for "the type;"
while Aldo himself is described as [Greek: epheurete touton grammaton charakteros hos eiretai]. The prefaces, almost always composed in Greek, prove that this language was read currently in Italy, since Aldo relied on numerous purchasers of his large and costly issues. The Greek type, for the casting of which he provided machinery in his own house, was formed upon the model supplied by Marcus Musurus, a Cretan, who had taken Latin orders and settled at Carpi, and from whom Aldo received important a.s.sistance in the preparation of editions for the press. The compositors, in like manner, were mostly Cretans. We hear of one of them, by name Aristoboulos Apostolios, while John Gregoropoulos, another Cretan, the brother-in-law of Musurus, performed the part of reader. The ink used by Aldo was made in his own house, where he had, besides, a subordinate establishment for binding.
The paper, excelled by none that has been since produced, came from the mills of Fabriano. It may easily be imagined that this beehive of Greek industry often numbered over thirty persons, not including the craftsmen employed in lesser offices by the day.
The superintendence of this large establishment, added to the anxieties attending the production of so many books as yet not edited, sorely taxed the health and powers of Aldo. For years together he seems to have had no minute he could call his own. Continual demands were made by visitors and strangers upon his hours of leisure; and in order to secure time for the conduct of his business, he was forced to placard his door with a prohibitory notice.[348] Besides the more ordinary interruptions, to which every man of eminence is subjected, he had to struggle with peculiar difficulties due to the novelty of his undertaking. The prefaces to many of his publications contain allusions to strikes among his workmen,[349] to the piracies of rival booksellers,[350] to the difficulty of procuring authentic MSS.,[351]
and to the interruptions caused by war. Twice was the work of printing suspended, first in 1506, and then again in 1510. For two whole years at the latter period the industries of Venice were paralysed by the allied forces of the League of Cambray. The dedication of the first edition of Plato, 1513, to Leo X. concludes with a prayer, splendid in the earnestness and simplicity of its eloquence, wherein Aldo compares the miseries of warfare and the woes of Italy with the sublime and peaceful objects of the student. All the terrible experiences of that wasteful campaign, from the effects of which the Republic of Venice never wholly recovered, seem to find expression in the pa.s.sionate but reverent, address of the great printer to the scholar Pope. For two years previously the press of Aldo had been idle, while the French were deluging Brescia with blood, and the plains of Ravenna were heaped with dead Italians, Spaniards, Gauls, and Germans, met in pa.s.sionate but fruitless conflict by the Ronco. Now, from the midst of her desolated palaces and silenced lagoons, Venice stretched forth to Europe the peace-gift of Plato. The student who had toiled to make it perfect, appealed before Christ and His vicar, from the arms that brutalise to the arts that humanise the nations.
[Footnote 348: See Didot"s _Alde Manuce_, p. 417, the pa.s.sage beginning "Vix credas." In the Latin preface to the _Thesaurus Cornucopiae et Horti Adonidis_, 1495, Aldo complains that he has not been able to rest for one hour during seven years.]
[Footnote 349: "Tot illico oborta sunt impedimenta malorumque invidia et domesticorum [Greek: kai tais ton kataraton kai drapeteuonton doulon epiboulais]." Preface to the _Poetae Christiani Veteres_, 1501.
Again in the "monitum" of the same, "quater jam in aedibus nostris ab operariis et stipendiariis in me conspiratum et duce malorum omnium matre avaritia quos Deo adjuvante sic fregi ut valde omnes poeniteat suae perfidiae."]
[Footnote 350: The French publishers of Lyons, the Giunti of Rome, and Soncino of Fano, were particularly troublesome. Didot has extracted some curious information about their tricks as well as Aldo"s exposure of them. Pp. 167, 482-486.]
[Footnote 351: See especially the preface to Aristotle, vol. i. 1495; vol. v. 1498.]
In the midst of these occupations, disappointments, and distractions, Aldo, sustained by the enthusiasm of his great undertaking, never flagged. Some of his prefaces, after setting forth the impediments he had to combat, burst into a cry of triumph. What joy, he exclaims, it is to see these volumes of the ancients rescued from book-buriers ([Greek: bibliotaphoi]) and given freely to the world![352] No man could have been more generously anxious than he was to serve the cause of scholarship by the widest possible diffusion of books at a moderate price. 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 Musaeus was sold for something under one shilling of our money, the Theocritus for something under two shillings. The five volumes which contained the whole of Aristotle, might be purchased for a sum not certainly exceeding 8_l._ Each volume of the pocket series, headed in 1501 by the 8vo. Virgil, and comprising Greek, Latin, and Italian authors, fetched about two shillings. For this library the celebrated Italic type, known as Aldine, was adapted from the handwriting of Petrarch, and cut by Francesco da Bologna.[353] It appears that, as his trade increased, Aldo formed a company, who shared the risks and profits of the business.[354] Yet the expenses of publishing were so heavy, the insecurity of the book market so great, and the privileges of copyright granted by the Pope or the Venetian Senate so imperfect,[355] that Aldo, after giving his life to this work, and bequeathing to the world Greek literature, died comparatively poor. Erasmus, always somewhat snarling, accused him of avarice; yet it was his liberality to his collaborators, his openhandedness in buying the expensive apparatus for critical editions, that forced him to be economical.
[Footnote 352: See Preface to _Thesaurus Cornucopiae_, quoted by Didot, p. 80; and cf. pp. 210, 221, 521, for further hints about selfish bibliomaniacs, who tried to h.o.a.rd their treasures from the public and refused them to the press. Aldo, as a genuine lover of free learning, and also as a publisher, detests this cla.s.s of men.]
[Footnote 353: See Pannizzi"s tract on "Francesco da Bologna,"
published by Pickering, 1873. He was probably Francia the painter.]
[Footnote 354: In a letter to Marcello Virgilio Adriani, the teacher of Machiavelli, he mentions some books "c.u.m aliis quibusdam communes,"
as distinguished from others which were his private property. Didot, p. 233.]
[Footnote 355: On the subject of patents, privileges, and monopolies see Didot, pp. 79, 166, 189, 371, 479-481.]
The first editions of Greek books published by Aldo deserve to be separately noticed. In 1493, or earlier, appeared the "Hero and Leander" of Musaeus, a poem that pa.s.sed, in that uncritical age, for the work of Homer"s mythical predecessor.[356] In 1495 the first volume of Aristotle saw the light, accompanied by numerous Greek epigrams and a Greek letter of Scipione Fortiguerra, who deplores in it the deaths of Pico, Poliziano, and Ermolao Barbaro. The remaining four volumes followed in 1497 and 1498. In the latter of these years Aldo, aided by his friend Musurus, produced nine comedies of Aristophanes; the MSS. of the "Lysistrata" and "Thesmophoriazusae" were afterwards discovered at Urbino, and published by Giunta in 1515. In 1502, Thucydides, Sophocles, and Herodotus appeared, followed in 1503 by Xenophon"s "h.e.l.lenics" and Euripides,[357] and in 1504 by Demosthenes. After this occurs a lull, occasioned in part by the disturbances ensuing on the League of Blois. In 1508 the list is recontinued with the Greek orators; while 1509 has to show the minor works of Plutarch. Then follows another stoppage due to war. In 1513 Plato was published, and in 1514 Pindar, Hesychius, and Athenaeus.
[Footnote 356: [Greek: Mousaion ton palaiotaton poieten ethelesa prooimiazein to te Aristotelei kai ton sophon tois heterois autika di"
emou entypesomenois]. This [Greek: prodromos], or precursor, appeared without a date; but it must have come out earlier than 1494.]
[Footnote 357: John Lascaris had edited four plays of Euripides for Alopa in 1496. This Aldine edition contained eighteen, one of which, the _Hercules Furens_, turned up while vol. ii. was in the press. The _Electra_, not discovered till later on, was printed at Rome, 1545.]
From the preceding account I have omitted the notice of minor editions as well as reprints. In order to complete the history of the Aldine issue of Greek books, it should be mentioned that Aldo"s successors continued his work by giving Pausanias, Strabo, aeschylus, Galen, Hippocrates, and Longinus to the world; so that when the Estiennes of Paris came to glean in the field of the Italian publishers, they only found Anacreon, Maximus Tyrius, and Diodorus Siculus as yet unedited.
We must not forget that, while the Greek authors were being printed thus a.s.siduously by Aldo, he continued to send forth Latin and Italian publications from his press. Thus we find that the "Etna" and the "Asolani" of Bembo, the collected writings of Poliziano, the "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili," the "Divine Comedy," the "Cose Volgari"
of Petrarch, the "Poetae Christiani Veteres," including Prudentius, the poems of Ponta.n.u.s, the letters of the younger Pliny, the "Arcadia"
of Sannazzaro, Quintilian, Valerius Maximus, and the "Adagia" of Erasmus were printed, either in first editions or with a beauty of type and paper never reached before, between the years 1495 and 1514.
The great Dutch scholar who made an epoch in the history of learning, and transferred the sovereignty of letters to the north of Europe, paid a visit in 1508 to the house of Aldo, where he personally superintended the re-impression of his "Proverbs."[358] We have a lively picture of the printing of this celebrated book in Aldo"s workshop. "Together we attacked the work," says Erasmus, "I writing, while Aldo gave my copy to the press." In one corner of the room sat the scholar at his desk, with the thin keen face so well portrayed by Holbein, improvising new paragraphs, and making additions to his previous collections in the brilliant Latin style that no one else could write. Aldo took the MS. from his hand, and pa.s.sed it on to the compositors, revising the proofs as they came fresh from the press, or conferring with his reader Seraphinus.[359] Erasmus had already gained the reputation of a dangerous freethinker and opponent to the Church.
As years advanced, and the Reformation spread in Northern Europe, he became more and more odious to ecclesiastical authority. The spirit of revolt was incarnate in this Voltaire of the sixteenth century, nor could the clergy raise other arms than those of persecution against so radiant a champion of pure reason. All reprints of the "Adagia" were therefore forbidden by the bishops. Paulus Manutius had to quote it on his catalogues as the work of _Batavus quidam h.o.m.o_. To such an extent were liberal studies now gagged and downtrodden by the tyrants of the Counter-Reformation in that Italy which for two previous centuries had been the champion of free culture for Europe.
[Footnote 358: The _Adagia_ were first printed in 1500 at Paris by John Philippi. After the Aldine edition eleven were issued between 1509 and 1520 by Matthew Schurer, ten by Froben between 1513 and 1539, while seven or eight others appeared in various parts of Germany.]
[Footnote 359: See the pa.s.sage quoted by Didot, pp. 297-299.]
Before concluding the biography of Aldo Manuzio it may be well to give some account of the more ill.u.s.trious a.s.sistants and collaborators whom he gathered around him in his academy at Venice.[360] The New Academy, or Aldine Academy of h.e.l.lenists, was founded in 1500 for the special purpose of promoting Greek studies and furthering the publication of Greek authors. Its rules were written in Greek; the members were obliged to speak Greek; their official t.i.tles were Greek; and their names were Grecised. Thus Scipione Fortiguerra, of Pistoja, who prepared the text of Demosthenes for Aldo, styled himself Carteromachos: and Alessandro Bondini, the Venetian physician who worked upon the edition of Aristotle, bore the name of Agathemeros.[361]
The most distinguished Greeks at that time resident in Italy could be counted among the Neacademicians. John Lascaris, of Imperial blood, the teacher of h.e.l.lenism in France under three kings, was an honorary member. To this great scholar Aldo dedicated his first edition of Sophocles. Marcus Musurus occupied a post of more practical importance.[362] We have seen that his handwriting formed the model of Aldo"s Greek type. To his scholarship the editions of Aristophanes, Plato, Pindar, Hesychius, Athenaeus, and Pausanias owed their critical accuracy; while, in concert with Nicolaos Blastos and Zacharias Calliergi, two Cretan printers settled in Venice, he published the first Latin and Greek lexicon.[363] It will be observed that the Cretans play a prominent part in this Venetian revival of Greek learning. Aristoboulos Apostolios, Joannes Gregoropoulos, Joannes Rhosos, and Demetrius Doucas, all of them natives of Crete, were members of the Neacademy. 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 a.s.sistance. 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 n.o.ble Venetian poet, corrected Lucretius, Ovid, Terence, Quintilian, Horace, and Virgil.
Giambattista Egn.a.z.io performed the same service for Valerius Maximus, the Letters of Pliny, Lactantius, Tertullian, Aulus Gellius, and other Latin authors. To mention all the eminent Venetians who played their part in this Academy would be tedious; yet the two names of Marino Sanudo, the famous diarist, and of Marco Antonio Coccio, called Sabellicus, the historian of the Republic, cannot be omitted. Of northern foreigners the most ill.u.s.trious was Erasmus; to Englishmen the most interesting is Thomas Linacre. Born in 1460 at Canterbury, he travelled into Italy, and studied at Florence under Poliziano and Chalcondylas. On his return to England he founded the Greek Chair at Oxford, and died in London in the year 1524. His translation into Latin of the "Sphere" of Proclus was published by Aldus in 1499. To him and to Grocin belongs the credit of having sought to plant the culture of Italy in the universities of England.
[Footnote 360: Didot, pp. 147-151, 436-470, gives ample details concerning the foundation, const.i.tution, and members of the Aldine Academy.]
[Footnote 361: We may compare the name of Melanchthon.]
[Footnote 362: A native of Rotino, in Crete (b. 1470, d. at Rome 1517). He acquired Latin so thoroughly that Erasmus wrote of him: "Latinae linguae usque ad miraculum doctus, quod vix ulli Graeco contigit praeter Theodorum Gazam et Joannem Lascarem." John Lascaris was his master.]
[Footnote 363: _Etymologicon Magnum_, 1499. Didot, pp. 544-578, may be consulted for information about this Greek press. Musurus boasts in his encomiastic verses that the work was accomplished entirely by Cretans. [Greek: a.n.a.lomasi Blastou pono kai dexioteti Kalliergou] in the colophon.]
During a severe illness in the year 1498 Aldo vowed to take holy orders if he should recover. From this obligation he subsequently obtained release by a brief of Alexander VI., and in the following year he married Maria, daughter of Andrea Torresano, of Asola. 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 Asola.n.u.s were a.s.sociated on the t.i.tle-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). He carried on the press at Venice and at Rome, separating in the year 1540 from his uncles the Asolani, and bequeathing his business to his son named Aldo. This grandson of Aldo Manuzio, called by Scaliger a "wretched and slow wit, the mimic of his father," began his career by printing, at the age of eleven, a treatise on the "Eleganze della Lingua Toscana e Latina." He married Francesca Lucrezia Giunta, of the famous house of printers, and died, without surviving issue, at Rome in 1597. Thus the industry of Aldo was continued through two generations till the close of the sixteenth century. The device of the dolphin and the anchor, intended to symbolise quickness of execution combined with firmness of deliberation, and the motto _Festina lente_, which Sir Thomas Browne has rendered by "Celerity contempered with cunctation," though changed to suit varieties of taste from time to time, were never altogether abandoned by the Aldines.[365] As years went on, however, their publications became of less importance, and the beauty of their books degenerated.