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serving by his honourable labours. — ^Whether Aldus was descended from a noble family or not is of little consequence; if he were really the son of a converted Jew, the greater honour doth it confer on him, who, in that case, was the founder and architect of his own fame : and the remark made by Lipsius of the two Scaligers, will apply with equal truth to the Alduses — that if^ they were not princes they deserve to be, on account of their extraordinary genius and wonderful erudition. For every man of superior talent and learning we must expect to find an envious Scoppius; yet were all uiat Ciafoni has urged on this point against Aldus Manutius, strictly correct, how entirely is this pardonable vanity eclipsed by his patient and tmwearied assidui^ in rescuing the literature of Greece and Rome from the dark oblivion of the middle
X; devoting the best years of his life, and the le of his fortune to the accomplbhment of this grand object. l/Ct any person who enter- tains for one moment the aspersions of a writer but little known, compare the undoubted com- positions of the Venetian printer, — both the friend and companion of the great and the learned, — with the charge of ignorance and plagiarism, contained in the letters of Ciofani, and we feel assured that the suspicion against Aldus will immediately vanish. Mr. Hartshome* declares these letters to be genuine : — we have examined thdr authoritr, and are convinced that they are atrocious libefs, unworthy of the slightest credit.
Aldus Manutius was born in the year 1446, or 1447. His christian name Aldus was a con- traction of Theobaldus. His simame was Manutius, — to which he sometimes added the appellation of Pius, or Bassianas, or Romanus. The first of these appellatives was assumed by Aldus, from his having been the tutor of Alber- tos Pius, a prince of Use noble house of Carpi, and to whom the grateful printer dedicated the Orgarum of Aristotle, in 1495. The second of these appellatives was derived from the name of the birth-place of the printer — namely, Bassian, a small town in the duchy of Lermonetta. — The name of Pius was not assumed till 1503.
It appears that Aldus first conceived the idea of setting up a printing office, while he was on a visit at Mirandola, with the celebrated Picusf of that place, in conjunction with his nuble pupil Albertus Pius. About the year 1488, he IS supposed to have taken up his residence at Venice, as the iavourite city in which to mature his plans; and about the year 1494, or 1495, he put forth there the fir6t production of his press : and while be paid the most .sedulous attention to his printing office, carried on a very extensive correspondence with the literati of Europe, ex- plained the classics to a numerous auditory of students, and also found time to compose vanous works, which are characterized by profound
- BooAr Rarities of the Untvereifj/ of Cambridge.
t The works of Picas Mirandola was printed at Stras. bor^. in the year 1S07, hj a jnrinter named Knobloch. The errtta of this volome occupy tUteen folio pagei.
learning and extensive variety; and to bis ge- nius and efforts we are indebted for the various improvements in the typographic art. He in- vented the beautiful letter known by the name of italic, which has been already noticed.
In the year 1500, Aldus married the daughter of Andrea d'Asola; and about this time, or pro- bably a year or two earlier, he printed the first leaf, in folio, of a proposed edition of the Bible in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languagei; so that, as Renouard justly observes, Aldus has the honour of having first suggested the plan of a Polyglott Bible, however the plan failed of being carried into effect. The only known copy of this exquisitely precious fragment is in the royal library at Paris.
In 1501, Aldus wrote and printed an Intro- duction to the Hebrew tongue; and, Justin Decadius says, he made him a promise that he would print a Bible in Hebrew, Greek, and Lafttt; but it is not known that he performed it with respect to the Hebrew.
The honour of the first Greek press has by some writers been ascribed to Aldus Manutius, it must, however, be understood to have been so done car' i^oxHv, and not with any strict cor- rectness. The zeal which Aldus evinced in the progress of Greek typography, and the number and variety of Greek authors which he gave to the public, certainly entitie him, by way of emi- nence, to the distinction by which Henry Ste- phens characterises him, when speaking of Greek works, he says of Aldus —
Qui grapliicis primis tiadidit ilia typis.
Aldus generally printed his editions in Greek solely to re-establish the study of the language, and to induce scholars to read the originals.
Mattaire, speaking of Aldus's Greek, says, " bis characters were large, round, beautiful and el^^t, adorned with frequent ligatures, which added great beauty to bis editions." In some of his editions he gave the Greek text, and then the Latin translation. He invented a method of imposing a work in such a manner, that the purchaser could bind them up singly or together, that is, the matter was imposed in such a man- ner, that one language interleaved the other. Chevillier, who remarks this, had seen few other specimens of such an arrangement; but it has been revived in modern times by the family of Foulis at Glasgow. The way of printing two languages in opposite columns was not invented until the year 1530.
The learned Zuinger informs, that the mind of Aldus was entirely engaged in the care of his printing-house; for, as soon as he had ordered nis other necessary affairs, he shut himself up in his study, where he employed himself in revising his Greek and Latin manuscripts, reading the letters which he received from the learned out of all parts of the world, and writing answers to them. To prevent intermption by impertinent visits, he caused the following inscription to be placed over his door : — " Whoever you are Aldus earnestly entreats you to dirpatch your butineu
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