Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

He had similar correspondence with the well-known scholar, Reuchlin, an appreciative friend and a grateful customer, who in 1501, at the time of the first letters, was resident in Heidelberg, and also with Longinus and the poet Conrad Celtes in Vienna. The latter was later of service to Aldus in securing for his Press valuable manuscripts from Bohemia, and from certain monasteries in Transylvania. The name of Celtes is further of note in the literary history of Germany because to him was issued the earliest German privilege of which there is record. It bears date 1501, and protected the publication of an edition by Celtes of the writings of the Benedictine nun Hroswitha (Helena von Rossow), who had been dead for 600 years.

The most famous of the transalpine scholars with whom Aldus came into relations was, however, Desiderius Erasmus, of Rotterdam, or to speak with more precision, of Europe. Erasmus has many titles to fame, but for the purposes of this treatise his career is noteworthy more particularly because he was one of the first authors who was able to secure his living, or the more important portion of this, from the proceeds of his writings. The career of Erasmus belongs properly to the chapter on Germany, as it was in Basel, at that time a city of the Empire, that he made his longest sojourn, in close association with his life-long friend Froben, the scholarly publisher whom Erasmus called the “Aldus of Germany.”

In 1506, Erasmus, who had been in England for a second visit, came to Italy, where he lectured in the Universities of Bologna and Padua, and from Padua he was induced by Aldus to transfer himself to Venice. There he remained during the year 1508, making his home with the publisher, and rendering important service as a literary adviser and in editorial work. There is no record of any formal or continued business arrangement between the scholar and the publisher, and it is very possible that no such arrangement took shape.

Erasmus took charge of the preparation for the press, among other works, of the Aldine editions of Terence, Seneca, Plutarch’s Morals, and Plautus. For his work on the Plautus he tells us that he received twenty pieces of gold (i. e., ducats). Later, however, he denied with some indignation, in writing to Scaliger, that he had worked as a “corrector” or proof-reader for Aldus. It should be borne in mind that in connection with the many difficulties in securing from more or less doubtful manuscripts trustworthy texts, and in educating compositors to put such texts correctly into type, the work of reviser, press-corrector, or proof-reader, in the earlier days of printing, demanded a very high standard of scholarship and a wide range of knowledge. There was, therefore, no reason why Erasmus should have been ashamed to admit that he had done work of this kind. Some years later he gave to his friend Froben, the great publisher of Basel, similar service and co-operation. The intimate relations of Erasmus with Aldus and Froben, by far the greatest publishers of the time, had no little influence in furthering the world-wide circulation secured for his works.

While in Venice, Erasmus also supervised the printing of a revised edition of his Adagia (Proverbs) which appeared in 1508. For this work, Aldus obtained a privilege both in Venice and in Rome, and there were printed in Venice alone eight editions. When, however, in 1520, Paul Manutius undertook again to reprint the Adagia, he found that he had to contend with an increasing hostility on the part of the Church against anything bearing the name of Erasmus. The book was finally issued anonymously, and it was described in the catalogue as the work of “Batavus quidam homo” (a certain Hollander).

In 1512, Aldus printed, under the instructions of Erasmus, (who was, however, at that time no longer in Italy) the Colloquies and the Praise of Folly. There is unfortunately no record of the publishing arrangement arrived at for these, but as Erasmus complained bitterly of the loss and injury caused to the author through the wide sale of the piracy issues, it is fair to assume that he had reserved an interest in the authorised editions. In the introduction to his Adagia, Erasmus writes as follows: “Formerly there was devoted to the correctness of a literary manuscript as much care and attention as to the writing of a notarial instrument. Such care and precision were held to be a sacred duty. Later, the copying of manuscripts was entrusted to ignorant monks and even to women. But how much more serious is the evil that can be brought about by a careless printer, and yet to this matter the law gives no heed. A dealer who sells English stuffs under the guise of Venetian is punished, but the printer who in place of correct texts, misleads and abuses the reader with pages the contents of which are an actual trial and torment, escapes unharmed. It is for this reason that Germany is plagued with so many books that are deformed (i. e., untrustworthy). The authorities will supervise with arbitrary regulations the proper methods for the baking of bread, but concern themselves not at all as to the correctness of the work of the printers, although the influence of bad typography is far more injurious than that of bad bread.”

The relations of Aldus with Johann Reuchlin were longer and more intimate than with Erasmus. It was natural enough that the scholar who may properly be called the founder of Greek studies in Germany, should have come into close relations with the publisher who had undertaken to produce Greek texts for Europe and who had founded a Greek academy in Venice. In 1498, Aldus printed the Latin oration which Reuchlin had addressed to Pope Alexander VI., in behalf of the Prince Palatine Philip, and from that date the two men remained in regular correspondence with each other. In 1502, Aldus, writing to Reuchlin (who was at that time in Pforzheim), gives, as to a trusted friend upon whose sympathy and intelligent interest he could depend, the details of his publishing undertakings and of his plans and hopes for the future, and asks for counsel on various points. A few months later, in another letter, Aldus writes:

“I am hardly able to express my gratification at your friendly words concerning the importance and the value of my publishing undertakings. It is no light thing to secure the commendation of one of the greatest scholars of his time. If my life is spared to me, I hope more fully to deserve the praise that you give to me for service rendered to the scholarship and enlightenment of the age.”

Reuchlin was not only a friendly counsellor of the Venetian publisher, but a valuable customer also for his books. In addition to purchasing for his own library a full series of the Aldine editions, Reuchlin appears to have interested himself keenly in commending these to his scholarly acquaintances, not only, as he states, in order to encourage a great undertaking, but for the purpose of doing service to German students. In 1509, Reuchlin was appointed by the Duke of Bavaria, Professor of Greek and Hebrew in the University of Ingolstadt, the first professorship of Greek instituted in Germany. Reuchlin said more than once that the work of his Chair had been made possible only through the service rendered by Aldus in providing the Greek texts.

The influence of Aldus not only on the publishing standards but on the scholarly and literary conditions of Germany, was in fact widespread and important. Kapp, the historian of the German book-trade, speaks of it as more important than that of all the German publishers of his generation. This influence was due not only to the publishing undertakings of the Aldine Press, but to the intimate relations maintained by its founder with many of the German scholars, relations which helped to establish a community of interests between the literary centres of Italy and Germany and to direct German scholarship into new paths. The separation of political boundaries had no significance for a man with the humanitarian ideals of Aldus, while the fact that Latin was the universal language of scholarship and of literature, helped not a little to bring about that community of feeling among scholars which was the special aim of the Venetian publisher. In 1502, Aldus writes to John Taberio, in Brescia: