MANUZZI, FAMILY. — ALDO the ELDER, celebrated printer and humanist, b. at Bassiano (Rome) in 1449. He studied at Rome and Ferrara, and was tutor to the princes Pio of Carpi, from whom he was permitted to assume their surname. About 1490 he moved to Venice to found a printing house there. From 1494 to 1515, with some interruptions, he published about 130 editions, especially of Greek and Latin classics (27 “princeps” editions). Notable among these are the Aristotle in 5 vols. (1495–98), Aristophanes (1498), Poliziano (1498), the Epistles of St. Catherine of Siena (1500), Demosthenes (1504), and Plato (1513), dedicated to Leo X. From his press there also issued in 1499 what was acclaimed as the most beautiful book of the Renaissance for its splendid woodcuts, the *Hypnerotomachia Poliphili*: an archaeological-allegorical romance by the Fr. Francesco Colonna. For his classical editions, several of great philological value, Aldo associated with some of the leading humanists of the day: Erasmus of Rotterdam, Scipione Forteguerri, Marco Musuro, Giambattista Egnazio, etc., whom he gathered into an Academy (1502), named after him the Aldine Academy. From 1508 his official partner in the press was the printer Andrea Torresano, whose daughter he had married in 1505. He died worn out by immense toil on 6 Feb. 1515.
Universally admired apostle of the spread of the classics and of the study of Greek in Italy and Europe, Aldo made Venice the most important centre of classical learning. He was also a brilliant innovator in typography, above all for having devised the small octavo format (“enchiridion” form) with the elegant italic type (the aldine) cut for him by the Bolognese Francesco Griffi. Editions in this format and type, such as the Virgil and Horace of 1501, the Dante of 1502, etc., enjoyed immense success and found admirers and imitators (despite papal and Venetian Senate privileges) even outside Italy. The celebrated printer’s mark of the dolphin coiled around an anchor first appeared in the *Poetae christiani veteres* (1502).
As an author Aldo was chiefly a grammarian. He wrote numerous prefaces to his editions, some Latin poems, and translations from Greek into Latin.
PAOLO, humanist and printer, son of Aldo, b. at Venice on 12 June 1512.
In 1533 he revived his father’s press, publishing new editions of the classics, especially Latin ones. In 1561, through the agency of Card. Girolamo Seripando, he accepted the task of directing in Rome a press established by Pope Pius IV to publish corrected editions of the Fathers of the Church for use in the anti-Protestant controversy. But after the accession of St. Pius V the press, managed by the Popolo Romano, increasingly confined itself to official editions arising from the Council of Trent (Canons and Decrees, Catechisms, Indices, and Breviaries). In 1570, weary, Paolo obtained from the Pope the rescission of his contract. He returned to Rome in 1573 and died there on 6 Apr. of the following year.
A humanist and Ciceronian, Paolo always regarded his activity as a printer as secondary. His commentaries on Cicero, studies on Roman antiquities, prefaces, and Latin letters, repeatedly reprinted, established his reputation as a distinguished Latinist.
ALDO II GIOVANNI, scholar and printer, son of Paolo, b. at Venice on 13 Feb. 1547.
From 1568 he collaborated with the Torresani in the Aldine press, and after 1574, following his marriage to Francesca Lucrezia Giunta, he associated the Giunta printers in various publishing ventures. At the same time he taught rhetoric at the Studio of Padua, moving thence in 1585 to Bologna, succeeding C. Sigonio, then to Pisa (1587) and finally to Rome (1588), where he took up the chair left vacant by the death of M. A. Mureto. In 1590 Pope Clement VIII entrusted him with the direction of the Vatican Press. With his death on 28 Oct. 1597 the illustrious family of the Manuzzi became extinct.
Of precocious and lively intellect but rhetorical and of inconstant disposition, he left, besides many secondary works of philology and antiquarian studies, the principal writings: *Life of Cosimo I de’ Medici* (1586), *The Deeds of Castruccio Castracane* (1590), and *300 Vernacular Letters* (1592).