by Gertrude Burford Rawlings
New York D.Appleton and Company 1901
The new invention found more favor in Italy than in any other country, for more presses were established
there than anywhere else. The printers, however, were all Germans, and before 1480 about 110 German
typographers were at work in twenty-seven Italian cities. They kept the secrets of their trade well to
themselves, and not till 1471 was any printing executed by an Italian. In May of that year the De Medicillis
Ulliversalibus of Mesua was executed at Venice by Clement of Padua, who accomplished the truly
wonderful feat of teaching himself how to print. Another Italian, Joannes Phillipus de Lignamine, printed at
Rome some time before July 26, 1471, and it is therefore uncertain whether he or Clement of Padua was
the first native printer of Italy.
monastery of St. Scholastica at Subiaco, a few miles from Rome, by
two German typographers, Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz.
There they issued Cicero's De Oratore in 1465, the first book printed
in Italy. In their petition to the Pope, referred to below, they say that
they had printed a Donatus, presumably before the Cicero, but no
such work is known, and some have thought it was only a block-book.
In the same year they issued the works of Lactantius, "the Christian
Cicero," the first dated book executed in Italy. It is also one of the
earliest books to adopt a more elaborate punctuation than the simple
oblique line and full stop in general use. The Ladantius has a colon, full
stop, and notes of admiration and interrogation. Both these books
are printed in a pleasing type which is neither Gothic nor Roman, but
Two years later Sweynheim and Pannartz removed to Rome, where their countryman, Ulrich Hahn, was
already at work, and prosecuted their business with so much energy, and apparently so little prudence or
regard to the works of other printers, that at the end of five years they had printed no less than 12,475
sheets which they could not sell, and were in such financial straits that they petitioned the Pope for
assistance for themselves and their families. Whether they obtained it is unknown, but the partnership
was soon after dissolved, and the name of Pannartz alone appears in books of 1475 and 1476. When
these two printers died is uncertain.
Venice was the next city of Italy to take up the new art. There, in 1469, Joannes de Spira, or John of
Spires, executed Cicero's Epistolae; ad Familares. He obtained a privilege from the Venetian Senate with
regard to his productions, and, more than that, a monopoly of book printing in Venice for five years. He
died, however, less than a year later, and his monopoly with him. His brother Vindelinus carried on his
work, and was succeeded by Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, who, from a technical point of view, was
perhaps the most skilful and artistic of early typographers.
The most famous printer of Venice, however, and the most famous printer of Italy, and perhaps of the
world, is Aldus Manutius, born in 1450, but his fame rests less on his actual printing, which, though
good, is not unequalled, than upon the efforts he made for popularizing literature, and bringing cheap,
yet well-produced books within the reach of the many. He saw that the works printed in such numbers by
the Venetian printers, who paid attention to quantity and cheapness and altogether ignored the quality of
their productions, were faulty and corrupt, and that textually as well as typographically there was room
for improvement.
He applied himself to the study of the classics, above all to the Greek, hitherto neglected or published
through Latin translations, and secured the assistance of many eminent scholars, and then, having
obtained good texts, turned his thoughts to type and format. The types he cast for his first book,
Lascaris' Greek Grammar, were superior to the Greek types then in use. Next he designed a new Roman
type, modeled, so it is said, upon the handwriting of Petrarch. It called forth admiration, and won fame
under the name of the "Aldino” type. Its use has continued to the present day, and it is known to almost
everyone as Italic. It was cut by Francesco de Bologna, who was probably identical with Francesco
Raibolini, that painter-goldsmith who signed himself on his pictures as Aurifex and on his gold-work as
Pictor.
its invention, when type was large and required a
comparatively great deal of space, was that its size
and form permitted the printed matter to be much
compressed, while losing nothing in clearness. The
book for which it was used could be made smaller,
and printed more cheaply. In r501 Aldus
inaugurated his new type by issuing a Virgil
printed throughout in "Aldino." It occupied two
hundred and twenty eight leaves, and was of a
neat and novel shape, measuring just six by three
and a half inches. This book, which was sold for
about two shillings of our money, marks Aldus as
the pioneer of cheap literature-literature not for
the wealthy alone, but for all who loved books. A
proof of the popularity of the new departure is
afforded by the fact that the Virgil was immediately
forged, that is to say, reproduced in a number of
exceedingly inferior copies, by an unknown printer
all the numerous works subsequently issued from this famous press, is a dolphin twined about an
anchor, and the name ALDVS divided by the upper part of the anchor. This device continued to be used
after the death of Aldus Manutius in 1515 by his descendants, who carried on the work of the press until
1597.