Between 1470 and 1480 at least fifty printers were at work in Venice, and among the most important were John de Colonia, John Manthen de Gerretzem, Erhard Ratdolt, Octavianus Scotus. Erhard Ratdolt is especially of importance, for he was practically the first to introduce wood engravings in his books. In 1476, Ratdolt and his partners, Peter Loeslein and Bernard Pictor, began their work together by issuing a Calendar of Regiomontanus, with a very beautiful title-page surrounded by a woodcut border. From that time onwards, woodcuts were used in many Venetian books; and at last, in 1499, there appeared there that unsurpassed illustrated book the Hypnerotomachia of Franciscus Columna.
The history of the later Venetian press during the last ten years of the fifteenth century would require at least a volume. So far as the history of typography itself is concerned, there is nothing of interest to be noticed; but in the general history of printing Venice holds the highest place; for more printers printed there than in any other city of Europe. Of course, amongst this endless outpour of the press many important books were issued, but there are few which have any interest for the historian of printing.
There is, however, one printer who must always make this period celebrated. Aldus Manutius was born at Bassiano in 1450, and began to print at Venice in 1494. His main idea when he commenced to work was to print Greek books; and it was perhaps for that reason that he settled in Venice, where so many manuscripts were preserved, and where so many Greeks resided. His first two books, both issued in 1494, are the Galeomyomachia and the De Herone et Leandro of Musæus. In 1496 he obtained a copyright for twenty years in such Greek books as he might print, and from this time forward a large number were issued as fast as possible. So great was the hurry, that the editors in some cases did not scruple to hand over to the compositors the original manuscripts themselves from which the edition was taken, with their own emendations and corrections scribbled upon them. But this custom was not confined to the Aldine press, for Martin[20] tells us that the Codex Ravennas of Aristophanes was actually used by the compositors as the working copy from which part of the Giunta edition of 1515 was set up.
[20] Martin, Les scholies du Manuscrit d’Aristophane à Ravenna.
In 1499, Aldus married the daughter of Andrea de Torresani, himself a great printer, and in 1500 founded the Aldine Academy, the home of so many editors, and the source of so many scholarly editions of the sixteenth century. The end of the fifteenth century saw, at any rate, two rivals in Greek printing to Aldus: Gabriel da Brasichella, who with his associates published in 1498 the Epistles of Phalaris and Æsop’s Fables; and, in 1499, Zaccharia Caliergi of Crete, who printed with others or alone up till 1509. Caliergi, it would appear, was hardly a rival of Aldus; they were, at any rate, so far friendly that Aldus sold Caliergi’s editions along with his own.
In 1476 a press was set up at Foligno, in the house of Emilianus de Orsinis, by John Numeister, a native of Mainz, who is generally said to have been an associate and pupil of Gutenberg. This story seems to be founded upon an assertion put forward by Fischer, that a copy of the Tractatus de celebratione missarum, in the University Library at Mainz, contains a rubric stating that the book was printed by Gutenberg and Numeister in 1463. If this note ever existed, which is very doubtful, it is clearly a forgery, for the book in which it is said to occur was not printed till about 1480.
The first book in which we find Numeister’s name is the De bello Italico contra Gothos, by Aretinus, printed in 1470; and about the same date he printed an edition of the Epistolæ familiares of Cicero. In 1472 appeared the first edition of Dante; between that year and 1479 we hear nothing of Numeister. In 1479 an edition of the Meditationes of Turrecremata appeared with his name, printed in a large church type, not unlike, though not, as is often said, the same as, the type of the forty-two line Bible, and containing very fine engraved cuts. This book is generally stated, for some unknown reason, to have been printed at Mainz. After this date we find no further mention of Numeister; but M. Claudin[21] has written a monograph to show that he was the printer of the edition of the Meditationes of Turrecremata issued at Albi in 1481, a book remarkable for its wonderful engravings on metal, and of the Missale Lugdunense, printed at Lyons in 1487, which is stated in the colophon to have been printed by ‘Magistrum Jo. alemanum de magontia impressorem.’
[21] Origine de l’Imprimerie à Albi et en Languedoc.
After 1470 the spread of printing in Italy was very rapid. In 1471 we find it beginning at Bologna, Ferrara, Florence, Milan, Naples, Pavia, and Treviso.