Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

For centuries the Aldine editions served as the authoritative texts for the authors presented, and even to-day they stand as a wonderful monument of the imagination, the learning, the courage, and the persistency of their publisher. Good Italian though he were, Aldus was by some of his countrymen charged with want of patriotism on the ground that if he helped to make the study of the classics easy for the Barbarians of the outer world, they would no longer need to come for their learning to Italy, heretofore the centre and source of all scholarly enlightenment. To this effect writes Beatus Rhenanus in his introduction to the Works of Erasmus:

Quidam Venetiis olim Aldo Manutio commentarios Græcos in Euripidem et Sophoclem edere paranti dixit: Cave, cave hoc facias, ne barbari istis adjuti domi maneant et pauciores in Italiam ventilent.

Kapp is of opinion that the dread was well founded and that the distribution throughout Germany and France of popular editions of the classics, did have the result of keeping at home many students who would otherwise have crossed the Alps. That they were now able to secure, at moderate cost and in their own homes, learning for which heretofore they had been obliged to make long and costly journeys, was due to the unselfish and public-spirited labours of Aldus. It was, therefore, with good reason that he was held in high regard by the Humanists of Germany. They sought his friendship and nearly overwhelmed him with correspondence. In 1498, Conrad Celtes and Vincenzo Longinus commemorated his service in verse. Aldus thanked them for their courtesy, and in sending them as an acknowledgment copies of his Horace and Virgil, he asked them to bring him into communication with any scholarly Germans who were interested in the classics. Aldus did not, however, consider it wise to print the ode of eulogy that Celtes had written upon the Emperor Maximilian, because he was afraid of causing offence to the Bohemians and Hungarians through whose scholars he had secured not a few rare manuscripts.

Throughout Germany the productions of the Aldine presses were received with enthusiasm. Mutianus Rufus speaks of himself as weeping with joy when there came to him from a friend the precious gift of the editions of Cicero, Lucretius, and other classics. He and his friends Urban and Spalatin deprived themselves almost of the necessaries of life, in order to save moneys with which to bring across the Alps the other volumes of the series. Pirckheimer and Reuchlin were among the first of the German buyers of the Aldine classics. Hummelsburger writes in 1512 to Anselm in Tübingen, “I shall buy my Hebrew books in Italy, where Aldus has printed them in beautiful texts.... Germany no less than Latium owes a great debt to Aldus.”

The political status of Italy and its division into a number of states or principalities which carried on independent policies and which were frequently in active warfare with each other, entailed serious difficulties upon the new business of publishing, difficulties which, while troublesome enough for Aldus in Venice, were still more serious for his competitors in Florence and Milan. A privilege secured for Venice was not binding even in times of peace outside of Venetian territory, while in the frequently recurring times of war, any privileges which a Venetian or a Milanese publisher had been fortunate enough to secure in the Italian States were abrogated in fact if not in form. In this respect, the early publishers of Paris, whose privileges covered (nominally at least) the territory of the kingdom, had a decided advantage over their rivals in the much divided territory of Italy or of Germany.

Aldus had the feeling, for which in his case there appears to have been sufficient ground, that his business undertakings, with which were connected far-reaching plans for furthering scholarly knowledge, were absolutely dependent upon his own continued and persistent personal attention. While he had succeeded in securing the services of scholarly associates to share with himself the editorial responsibilities of his work, he does not appear to have been able, with the material at his command, to train up any assistants competent to take any important share in the business management. One of his many complaints concerning the repeated interruptions which interfere with his important daily labours, might have been uttered by many a publisher of later times. He writes in 1514 (the year before his death) to his friend Navagerus:

“I am hampered in my work by a thousand interruptions.... Nearly every hour comes a letter from some scholar, and if I undertook to reply to them all, I should be obliged to devote day and night to scribbling. Then, through the day come calls from all kinds of visitors. Some desire merely to give a word of greeting, others want to know what there is new, while the greater number come to my office because they happen to have nothing else to do. ‘Let us look in upon Aldus,’ they say to each other. Then they loaf in and sit and chatter to no purpose. Even these people with no business are not so bad as those who have a poem to offer or something in prose (usually very prosy indeed) which they wish to see printed with the name of Aldus. These interruptions are now becoming too serious for me, and I must take steps to lessen them. Many letters I simply leave unanswered, while to others I send very brief replies; and as I do this not from pride or from discourtesy, but simply in order to be able to go on with my task of printing good books, it must not be taken hardly.... As a warning to the heedless visitors who use up my office hours to no purpose, I have now put up a big notice on the door of my office to the following effect: ‘Whoever thou art, thou art earnestly requested by Aldus, to state thy business briefly and to take thy departure promptly. In this way thou mayst be of service even as was Hercules to the weary Atlas. For this is a place of work for all who may enter.’”

Aldus Manutius died January 25, 1515, (Venetian style, corresponding to February 6, 1515, modern style) aged sixty-five years. Until 1529, the business was carried on for the heirs by his father-in-law, Torresano, and in that year was taken over by Paul Manutius, the son of Aldus. In 1540, Paul took into partnership his son, Aldus the younger, and the firm took the title of Aldi Filii. With the death of Aldus the grandson, in 1597, the family, in its main line, became extinct, and the work of the Aldine Press, which had continued for a little more than a century, came to a close. To his children, Aldus was able to bequeath little besides his fame and the value of his name. The moneys that had been earned during his work of twenty-five years from the successful undertakings had been for the most part absorbed in other ventures which were either unremunerative, or from which the returns came but slowly. The carrying out of such great publishing plans required, in fact, business connections and methods which did not yet exist, and was dependent also upon the continuance of peace in Europe for a quarter of a century, an impossible condition for the beginning of the sixteenth century.

In entering upon business ventures under such difficult circumstances, Aldus was doubtless, from a business point of view, unwisely optimistic; but it is difficult not to admire the public spirit and the pluck with which, in the face of all difficulties, he persisted till the day of his death in the great schemes he had marked out for himself.

While his work had brought no wealth, his life had been rich in the accomplishment of great things and in the appreciation given to his labours. It was also his fortune to gather about him and to come into relations with many noteworthy men, who as friends and co-workers shared his enthusiasm, and who gave with him unselfish labour for a scholarly ideal. Partly because the editors and the publishers were working for results other than profits, partly because the books published were (with a few noteworthy exceptions, like the writings of Erasmus) not original works, but editions of old classics, and partly because the whole business of publishing was still in its infancy, the history of the Aldine Press does not present any important precedents as to the compensation earned by authors for their productions, or as to the protection of the author’s property rights in these productions. The relations of Aldus with all the authors, editors, and scholars with whom he had to do were however more than satisfactory; they were cordial, resting in a number of cases on a close personal friendship. The scholars regarded the publisher as one of themselves, and, in fact, accepted him as a leader.