MANUZIO, ALDO PIO (or Manutius), the first of those justly celebrated printers who were in Italy what the Stephens afterwards became in France and Geneva, was born in 1447 at Bassiano, in the Roman state. He was educated at Rome, and after completing his course of study, repaired to Ferrara to study Greek under Guarini, a learned professor of that language. In 1482 he quitted Ferrara, then threatened with a siege by the Venetians, and retired to Mirandola, where he was received with distinction by the all-accomplished Pico. Yielding to the entreaties of Alberto Pico, he then went to Carpi, where he was soon joined by Pico, the uncle of the prince. In the course of the year 1488 he repaired to Venice, a city which, from its position, its commerce, and the literary taste of its inhabitants, appeared the best suited for his design. His first object was to make himself advantageously known, and, with this view, he commenced by giving public instructions in Greek and Latin; but in the meantime he was very busily occupied in organizing his printing-house; and at length, in 1494, he published the poem of Hero and Leander in Greek and Latin, which was followed by the Grammar of Lascaris, that of Theodore Gaza, and the works of Theocritus, Apollonius, and Herodian. But it was the publication of the works of Aristotle which placed Manuzio in the first rank of printers. This edition alone, though less correct than the greater part of those which followed it, would be sufficient to earn for Manuzio the gratitude of posterity, and to justify all the commendations which have been bestowed upon him. Before this time the greater part of books had been printed in the folio or largest size; Manuzio, however, conceived the happy idea of publishing a collection of the Latin classics in a more convenient form, and with this view he had a character cast in imitation (it is said) of the hand-writing of Petrarch, and employed it for the first time in the impression of his Virgil which appeared in 1501. This character, long afterwards known by the name of Aldine, and now by that of Italic, was designed and cut by Francesco of Bologna. The multiplicity of works which now issued from his presses having rendered it impossible for one individual to superintend the impressions, he had recourse to the assistance of some learned men, his personal friends; and out of this association of persons, united in one common object, he formed the Aldine Academy, whose short duration did not prevent it from attaining great celebrity. It reckoned amongst its members Bembo, Erasmus, Battista Egnazio, and Andrea Navagero, who every year burned, in honour of Catullus, a copy of Martial; the monk Bolzani, the first who wrote in Latin the principles of Greek grammar; Alcyonio, who is accused of having destroyed the only manuscript of Cicero's treatise De Gloria, after having transferred its finest passages to one of his own works; the Greek Musurus Demetrius Chalcondylas, who published the first edition of Homer; and Alcandro, afterwards cardinal. In 1506 war obliged Aldo to withdraw from Venice; and during his absence his goods were pillaged and his domains seized. In 1507 he resumed his typographical labours, and subsequently formed a partnership with Andrea Torresano d'Asola, his father-in-law, of which Aldo was constituted the head. He was on the point of publishing a Bible in three languages, when he was in 1515 removed by death, at the age of sixty-eight, leaving his son Paolo to prosecute his father's designs. The Greek editions which issued from the presses of Aldo are less correct than either the Latin or the Italian editions; but it should be remembered that he had frequently only a single manuscript, incomplete or half effaced, from which to reproduce a work, and that the conservation of many is entirely owing to his laborious patience. The mark of his press, it is well known, is a dolphin coiled round an anchor. Besides the prefaces, and the Greek or Latin dissertations with which he enriched most of his edi-
tions, Manuzio was the author of several works, which would of themselves have been sufficient to insure to him a distinguished place amongst the learned men of his age, if he had not been the most celebrated printer it produced. Of these works the most important are,—Radimenta Grammatices Linguae Latinae, Venice, 1501, in 4to; Grammaticae Institutiones Graecae, 1515, in 4to; Dictionarium Graeco-Latinum, 1497, 1524, in folio; De Metris Horatianis, a little work often reprinted during the sixteenth century; Scripta Tria longe rarissima denuo edita et illustrata, Bassano, 1806, in 8vo. The Abbé Morelli is the editor of this collection, which contains a poem of Aldus, entitled Musarum Panegyris, in two little pieces addressed to the Prince of Carpi. The original edition in 4to, without date, must have appeared before 1489. Manuzio translated from Greek to Latin the Grammar of Lascaris, the Batrachomyomachia, the Sentences of Phocylides, the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, and the Fables of Æsop and of Gabrias (Babrius). (See Life of Aldus Manutius the Elder, by Unger, augmented by Geret, Wittenberg, 1753, in 4to; also his Life by Manni.) (J.B.—E.)