On the discovery of the twelve come- transcriptions. But the wonderful disdies of Plautus in 1429,- for up till that covery of Gutenberg suddenly opened time only eight were supposed to exist - the spring, and diffused the long-peut-up copies of the manuscript had immediately waters of learning over the civilized to be made for the several Houses of world. Visconti, of Este, and of the Medici. It is further related as a proof of the esteem in which these treasures of classical learning were held by the princes, that a manuscript of Livy's Annals, sent by Cosmo de' Medici to Alfonso, King of Naples, sufficed to appease a quarrel between them; though the king was counselled by his physicians to examine it carefully lest Cosmo should have introduced poison between the leaves.*

about his patron, whose remarkable tal- | Prince from a literary point of view. Our

*

ents and singular excellence, while they admiration for the eminence which he obdeserved a better fate in his lifetime, tained, both in the cultivated use of his have been allowed to remain too long in own mind and in his endeavours to proobscurity after his death. Tiraboschi mote it in others, is increased by the conthe great historian of Italian literature, sideration of the perpetual state troubles first brought them to the light. Till that by which he was harassed. From his eartime no one had ever written any account liest years, at the age of four, he was the of the life of the Alberto Pio. He was pupil of Aldo Manuzio, and for nine the son of Leonello, Prince of Carpi, a years he enjoyed the advantage of so dissmall principality, now only a town in the tinguished a tutor, whereby he acquired present Duchy of Modena. His mother a permanent taste for literature. The was the sister of Pico della Mirandola, gratitude which the young prince felt on the accomplished friend of Lorenzo de' this account to Aldo, lasted through life, Medici. It had been arranged that Al- and showed itself on every occasion. berto Pio, and his brother Leonello, Aldo, on the other hand, had the highest should divide the principality with Gi-esteem for his young pupil, and paid a berto and his brothers, the descendants striking tribute to his zeal for learning in of another branch of the same family. This division of authority, especially when the state to be governed was of small dimensions, caused, as may easily be imagined, fierce and continual dissensions, and the estates of the Pio family were the scene of perpetual warfare. As usual, the Emperor of Germany was appealed to, and, as usual, no good result ensued. The neighbouring Dukes of Ferrara also strove more than once to appease the quarrel in Carpi. But the truces were always of short duration, un-ing to promote the revival of learning, til in the year 1500, Giberto, in order to revenge himself on his cousin Alberto, sold his rights over the principality of Carpi to the Duke of Ferrara, receiving in exchange a few towns belonging to the dukedom.

Thus did Ercole, Duke of Ferrara, first obtain a hold over the principality of Carpi, and his successor, Alfonso, was not slow to avail himself of this semblance of a right. By the payment of 100,000 florins to the Emperor Charles V., he obtained from him in 1552 the investiture of the principality, in defiance of a former decree of the Emperor Maximilian, which upheld the rights of Alberto Pio and anulled the cession made by Giberto to the Dukes of Ferrara. The Prince of Carpi, when thus robbed of his dominions, retired to the Court of Francis the First, and found his best consolation in those literary pursuits which in his brighter days he had so liberally protected.

Passing by the further political vicissitudes of Carpi before its final absorption into the Duchy of Ferrara, which have but a remote bearing on the subject of this paper, we will now look upon her

Storia, vol. vii. pp. 236, 283, et seq.

dedicating to him the first volume of his magnificent edition of Aristotle of 1495, called "Editio Princeps." In this dedication, Manuzio addresses Alberto Pio as the patron of all learned men, his own patron more especially; adverts to his enthusiasm for collecting Greek books, thus following in the footsteps of his learned uncle, Pico della Mirandola; and dwells upon the fair promise of his early years, so admirably spent in the improvement of his own mind and in endeavour

since he had for many years been indefatigable in collecting Latin, Greek, and Hebrew manuscripts, while he entertained with a princely magnificence the most learned men he could find, to correct and explain them.‡

Of a similar nature is the eulogium of Federigo Asolano, who also dedicated to the Prince of Carpi the second volume of the works of Galen. But Aldo Manuzio was more especially bound to express his sense of obligation to Alberto Pio, for, together with his uncle, Pico della Mirandola, this prince had formed a design which may well entitle them to be called the "Prince Printers of Italy." Their scheme was to publish an entire set of new and correct editions of Latin and Greek authors, in order the better to promote the study of the two languages.

The greatest printer of the age, Aldo Manuzio, was chosen to execute their project, which Erasmus, in his "Proverbs," afterwards printed by Aldo, rightly terms one of princely magnificence: for it included the restoration of litera

for ages; the supply of what was deficient; the correction, by careful comparison, of manuscripts which appeared er

ture fast falling to decay; the disinter- In order to compress the contents of ment of that which had lain concealed these folios into the Svo size which he invented, and which has since become so common a form of volume, he caused to be engraved that peculiar kind of type, which for a long time bore the name of the "Aldine Type," and which we now term "Italic."

roneous.

It was originally copied from the handwriting of Petrarch in the manuscript of the "Canzoniere," and the characters to which Aldo owes so much of his fame, and which may justly claim our admiration for the grace and taste of their forms, are supposed, with good reason, to have been cut by no less a hand than that of the great artist Francesco Raibolini, or

For this purpose Alberto Pio, although according to Rénouard he was then only twelve years old, and his uncle, Pico della Mirandola, wished to set up a magnificent printing-press in Carpi for Aldo Manuzio, giving him absolute possession of one of his castles in which to carry on the work, and even as a further mark of honour investing him with the goverment of a part of his territory. An Academy of Arts and Sciences was to be included in the scheme, in order that these might flour-"Il Francia." ish in his dominions, and Carpi be the centre whence the Aldine editions should emanate. Unhappily, so splendid a design was frustrated by the political disturbances already alluded to, and Aldo had to betake himself to Venice, where he set up, in 1488,† his famous printingpress, the cost of which was defrayed by the two princes, Alberto Pio and Pico della Mirandola, who by no means abandoned that part of the project because they could not have the glory of executing it in their own dominions. On the contrary, they gave large sums of money for this purpose, and throughout the various vicissitudes of the life of Aldo these two princes, despite their own political The first time that this type was emtroubles, continued to befriend him. The ployed was in the edition of Virgil pubprinting-press thus established at Venice lished by Aldo in 1501, and he is careful had a marvellous success. Before twenty to acknowledge his obligation to the years elapsed there was scarcely a Greek great artist in the following inscripor Latin author whose works had not issued from it in one of those beautiful editions now so rare and so eagerly coveted.

The full merit of these editions can only be rightly appreciated when we consider that the manuscripts from which they were printed were often imperfect, mutilated, and half effaced; the copies of the same author not always agreeing together, and demanding as much patience, wisdom, and sagacity on the part of the critic as manual dexterity on the part of the printer.

Hitherto books had been usually printed in folio, but Manuzio was first inspired with the idea of publishing them

in a smaller and more convenient form.

Maffei, Storia della Lett. Ital. vol. i. p. 242. Manni, Vita di Aldo Pio Manuzio, p. 12. There have been various opinions as to the exact date of this event, but Manni founds his assertion on Aldo's Preface to Aristotle, dated 1495, in which Aldo affirms that he has been seven years engaged in the "difficult and costly undertaking of printing."

From the beginning of the invention of printing, the types were for the most part engraved by either goldsmiths, coiners, or engravers of some kind or another, and the chief masters in the art were always chosen for this purpose. It is well known that "Francia” was unrivalled in his goldsmith work; that the medals and money stamped with coins of his engraving were equal to those of the famous "Caradosso" of Milan, and that when employed to paint the Altar-piece of the Bentivoglio Chapel, he signed his work "Franciscus Francia, Aurifex," as if to denote that he was by profession a goldsmith, and not an artist.*

tion:

In Grammatoglyptæ Laudem
Qui graiis dedit Aldus, in latinis
Dat nunc Grammata scalpta dædaleis
Francisci manibus Bononiensis.t

It is only much to be lamented that Aldo did not continue to act in accordance with this acknowledgment. Far from doing so, he obtained from the Government of Venice a monopoly for the use of these types during a period of ten years, and three successive Popes laboured to secure Aldo this monopoly, Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X.while it was forbidden to Francia to cut

Lanzi, Storia Pittorica dell' Italia, vol. v. p. 20. Rénouard, Annales des Alde, vol. i. p. 165. There has been some doubt as to whether this Francisci was the same person as the famous Francia, but Sir Antonio Panizzi, in a beautiful little treatise (from whence this information has been drawn) entitled "Chi era Francesco da Bologna," and privately printed in 1856, proves this point to the satisfaction of all his readers. See also Blade, Life of Caxton, vol. ii. p. 24.

they in return gave him their best assistance. From all sides contributions of manuscripts flowed in, some for sale, and some sent gratuitously as gifts.

From 1501 to 1505 the Aldine Press was in the fullest activity, publishing all the principal classical and Italian authors in that smaller form of which the Virgil of 1501 had been the first sample. The transition from the cumbersome and expensive folios to these cheap and portable editions was so great a step in the progress of printing, that it appeared only second in importance to the discovery of the art itself.

types for any one else, and to all, save Aldo, was their use forbidden. In all the history of monopolies and privileges one more odious than this could hardly be found. Even admitting, as it is commonly urged, that Aldo first invented the characters to which he gave his name, the mere fact of their having been executed by another hand ought to have restrained him from demanding, and the Government from according, so unjust and so exclusive a monopoly. In the rare and beautiful edition of Petrarch which Francia published at Bologna, where he set up his printing-press after his separation from Aldo, is to be found, Nor does the reputation of Aldo rest on the title-page, his lament that he had only on his printing, or even on his lost both the glory and the profit which editorial labours, the Greek and Latin he would have derived from the charac- dissertations, prefaces, and criticisms ters cut by his own hand, had not both with which he illustrated the books which fallen to the share of Aldo Manuzio. issued from the press; he left behind The rival printers of Soncino, near Cre- him also some original works, chiefly of mona, who first printed the Hebrew char- an instructive kind, of considerable merit. acters, and who, although they afterwards His first work was a Latin Grammar set up their printing-presses throughout written to take the place of the old schoItaly, always preserved the name of their lastic "Doctrinale" of "Alexandri da native town till it became a family name, declared also, without hesitation, that Aldo had usurped from Francesco da Bologna the honour of the invention and the design of the running characters. They further added that no one was to be compared with Francia for skill in engraving, not only Latin and Greek, but also Hebrew characters.

It must, however, also in fairness be stated that Rénouard does his best to justify Aldo from this accusation, by asserting that the inscription in the Virgil is an all-sufficient acknowledgment of the artist's share in the invention of the running characters. Be this as it may, it would still seem much to be regretted that even the semblance of so great a blot should rest on the character of a man who, like Aldo Manuzio, spent his whole life in efforts to contribute to the progress of the human mind and the advancement of civilization.

It is indeed difficult to form an idea of the enthusiasm with which Aldo laboured to place once more before mankind those grand productions of ancient classical literature which had so long been allowed to remain in obscurity. If he discovered a manuscript which had not yet been printed, he never ceased in his efforts till he had gained possession of it, regardless of trouble and expense. While he thus promoted the interests of learned men,

Familiarly called "caratteri corsivi."
Annales des Alde, vol. iii. p. 22.

Villa Dei," written in barbarous and meaningless rhymes, which had been the torment of his youth. This was followed by a Greek Grammar, a Greek and Latin Dictionary, and other works, whose names cannot be inserted in this paper for want of space.

PART II.

SOME writers have affirmed that Aldo Manuzio first invented the Greek types. This, however, Rénouard declares to be only so far true that up to the time of Aldo, whenever a Greek passage occurred in a book, it was left blank to be filled up with the pen, because few of the printing establishments were furnished with Greek types. But Greek books, many of them of importance, were known to be printed before that time, such as the Grammar of Lascaris at Milan in 1476, a Homer at Florence in 1488, and others besides. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Aldo was the first to introduce a great improvement in the existing Greek types, which were badly shaped and rudely cut, whereas he had new ones formed after the pattern of the best manuscripts. Moreover, Greek books, which had been printed slowly and at rare intervals, now issued from the great Venetian Press with astonishing speed. When Aldo had amply furnished himself with Greek and Latin types, his next step was to

A contemporary writer affirms that Aldo had silver types cast for his favourite editions. Another declares

adopt a peculiar device whereby his Erasmus, many of whose works he books might be distinguished all over the printed, makes allusion in his epitaph world. He chose with singular sagacity upon the printer: the mark of the Dolphin and Anchor well known to all, and which, adopted by | English printers and publishers, is still employed to adorn many of the choicest