The Man Who Changed Reading Forever

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 Have you heard of Aldus Manutius? If you ever read a print book, you owe him a lot!  Barbie Latza Nadeau explains how this man was in the right place at the right time to change reading forever.

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The Man Who Changed Reading Forever

The Venetian roots of revolutionary modern book printer Aldus Manutius shaped books as we know them today

Among the narrow cobbled sidewalks and winding canals of Venice’s Sant’Agostin neighborhood is a pretty yellow palazzo, its balcony overflowing with pink astoria flowers. Amid the ornate windows and lush flower boxes, it’s easy to miss a small plaque, carved in stone and written in formal Italian, commemorating one of the most important men in publishing history. This was the home of Aldus Manutius, says the plaque, and it was from here that “the light of Greek letters returned to shine upon civilized peoples.”

The palazzo, now divided into rental apartments and gift shops, is where Aldus forever changed printing more than half a millennium ago. He introduced curved italic type, which replaced the cumbersome square Gothic print used at the time, and helped standardize punctuation, defining the rules of use for the comma and semicolon. He also was the first to print small, secular books that could be carried around for study and pleasure—the precursors to paperbacks and e-readers today. “He was very much like the Steve Jobs of his era,” says Sandro Berra, managing director of the Tipoteca Italiana museum of typography outside of Venice (open to the public Tuesday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.). “He was ahead of his time, risking everything on an untested whim that somehow he knew would work.”

Fueling his risk-taking were fervent views on spreading knowledge to a broader audience. Before Aldus, books were extremely precious items, held in private collections or monasteries, inaccessible even to many scholars. “What he wrought, from the appearance of his first published book in 1493 until his death in 1515, was something akin to the first editorial boom,” writes Helen Barolini in her biography Aldus and His Dream Book. “He made the book an accessible vehicle of thought and communication.” Books, Aldus believed, provide an antidote to barbarous times and should not be hoarded by the privileged few. “I do hope that, if there should be people of such spirit that they are against the sharing of literature as a common good, they may either burst of envy, become worn out in wretchedness, or hang themselves,” he wrote in the preface of one of his volumes.

Aldus challenged received doctrine and sometimes pressed the limits of what the powerful Roman Catholic Church would accept. “He was the type who knew the difference between fearing God and fearing the church, and he lived his life on that fine line,” Berra says. “He also knew when to take a step back and reflect on what was important to his goals.” He printed most of the Greek canon for the first time and made secular literature portable, but he also printed important letters of the early church fathers; in 1518, his heirs printed the first edition of the Greek Bible.

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The 500-year anniversary of his death is being celebrated in New York and Venice and other cities where books are cherished. Early this year, he was honored with a far-reaching exhibition called “Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting Than Bronze” at the Grolier Club in Manhattan, where 150 of his antique volumes were on display. A series of memorial initiatives in Italy, where he is known as Aldo Manuzio, include a full calendar of “Manuzio 500” events in Venice, featuring readings and exhibits of his libelli portatiles (Latin for “portable books”), as well as demonstrations of the printing techniques he introduced.

Read the rest at Smithsonian.com

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