“Aldine Press”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography, among other things, for the introduction of italics.^[2] The press was the first to issue printed books in the small octavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and like that intended for portability and ease of reading.^[1]{{rp|82-84}} According to Curt Buhler, the press issued 132 books during twenty years of activity under Aldus.^[1] After Aldus’ death in 1515 the press was continued by his wife, Maria and her father, Andrea Torresani, until his son, Paulus Manutius (1512–1574) took over. His grandson Aldus Manutius the Younger then ran the firm until his death in 1597. Today, the antique books printed by the Aldine Press in Venice are referred to as Aldines.^[3]

The press enjoyed a monopoly of works printed in Greek in the Republic of Venice, effectively giving it copyright protection. Protection outside the Republic was more problematic, however. The firm maintained an agency in Paris, but its commercial success was affected by many counterfeit editions, produced in Lyons and elsewhere.^[6]

Beginnings

Aldus Manutius, the founder of the Aldine Press, was originally a humanist scholar and teacher. Manutius met Andrea Torresani, who had acquired publishing equipment from Nicholas Jensen's widow. The Aldine Press was originally owned half by Pier Francesco Barbarigo, the nephew of the current doge of the time, Agostino Barbarigo, and the other half by Andrea Torresani. Manutius owned one fifth of Torresani's share. Manutius mainly was in charge of the scholarship and editing, leaving financial and operating concerns to Barbarigo and Torresani. In 1496, Aldus established his own location in a building called the Thermae in the Sestiere di San Polo. The building was later demolished in 1873. Manutius lived and worked in the Thermae to produce published books from the Aldine Press. This was also the location of the "New Academy", where a group of Manutius' friends, associates, and editors came together to translate Greek and Latin texts.^[4]{{rp|1-5}}

Accomplishments of the Aldine Press

The press was started by Manutius based on his love of classics and the need of preservation of Hellenic studies. At first the press printed new copies of Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek and Latin classics. Manutius also printed dictionaries and grammars to help people interpret the books, used by scholars wanting to learn Greek to employ learned Greeks to teach them directly.^[5] Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein claimed that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had threatened the importance and survival of Greek scholarship, but publications such as those by the Aldine Press secured it. Erasmus was one of the scholars learned in Greek with whom the Aldine Press partnered in order to provide accurately translated text.^[5]{{rp|221}} The Aldine Press also expanded into current languages, mainly Italian and French.^[4]

Humanist typefaces

Aldus Manutius hired Francesco Griffo to create a typeface designed to reproduce the written hand of the humanists. This resulted in the first roman face adapted and known today as italic type. It was first used to print Cardinal Pietro Bembo's De Aetna in 1495. Before this time print publishing used block letters, the look of handwriting as print was a new phenomenon and, try as he might to prevent it, Manutius' typeface was illegally copied, spreading through Europe.^[2]

Aldus Manutius the Elder's portable books

In 1505 Manutius produced plain texts in useful form, using the term enchiridion, meaning a manual or small, hand-held weapon.^[4] The octavo was the first appearance of the editio minor, a straightforward text, established as well as the editor can manage. Although these new, portable books were not cheap, the books of the Aldine Press did not force upon their buyers a substantial investment that large volumes of text and commentary demanded during this era. The editio minor, instead, brought financial and logistical benefits to those interested in the classics. An individual didn't have to go to the book, rather now the book came along with them.^[4]{{rp|1-7}}

Imprint and motto

In 1501, Aldus used as his publisher's device the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor.^[6] "The dolphin and anchor device owed its origins most immediately to Pietro Bembo. Aldus was to tell Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the Emperor Vesparian and bearing an image of this device"^[7] The image of the dolphin and anchor on the coin came with a saying, "Festina Lente", meaning "make haste slowly". This would become the motto for the Aldine Press.^[4]

The Aldine Press after 1515

Publications

A partial list of publications from the Aldine Press cited from Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze.^[9]

Works published from the Greeks. Manutius printed thirty editiones principes of Greek texts, allowing these texts to escape the fragility of the manuscript tradition.

Archives

The most nearly complete collection of Aldine editions ever brought together was in the Althorp library of the 2nd Earl Spencer, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester.^[10]

In North America, the most substantial Aldine holdings can be found in the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at University of California, Los Angeles,^[11] at the Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin,^[12] and at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.^[13]

References

1. ^¹²{{cite book|last1=Barolini|first1=Helen|title=Aldus and His Dream Book|date=1992|publisher=Italica Press, Inc.|location=New York, New York|isbn=0-934977-22-4}}
2. ^¹{{cite book|last1=Seddon|first1=Tony|title=The Evolution of Type|date=2015|publisher=Firefly Books Ltd. 2015|location=Canada|isbn=978-1-77085-504-5}}
3. ^{{cite journal|last1=Bühler|first1=Curt F.|title=Aldus Manutius: The First Five Hundred Years|journal=The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America|date=1950|volume=44|issue=No. 3|pages=205–215}}
4. ^¹²³⁴{{cite book|last1=Fletcher III|first1=Harry George|title=New Aldine Studies|date=1988|publisher=Bernard M. Rosenthal, Inc.|location=San Francisco|isbn=0-9600094-1-8}}
5. ^¹{{cite book|last1=Eisenstein|first1=Elizabeth L.|title=The Printing Press as an Agent of Change|date=1979|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, England}}
6. ^H. George Fletcher, In praise of Aldus Manutius (New York: Morgan Library, 1995), pp. 26–27.
7. ^{{cite book|last1=Mortimer|first1=Ruth|title=Catalogue of books and Manuscripts. Part II. Italian 16th Century Books. 2 vols.|date=1974|publisher=Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|location=Cambridge}}
8. ^¹{{cite book|last1=Goldsmid|first1=Edmund|title=A Bibliographical Sketch of the Aldine Press at Venice: 3 Volumes|date=1887|publisher=Privately Published|location=Edinburgh}}
9. ^{{cite book|last1=George Fletcher|first1=Scott Clemons|title=Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze|date=2015|publisher=The Grolier Glub|location=New York}}
10. ^A Guide to Special Collections (1999)
11. ^{{cite web|title=Aldine Press|url=http://guides.library.ucla.edu/c.php?g=180922&p=1187196|website=UCLA Library|accessdate=25 July 2017}}
12. ^{{cite web|title=Aldine Press|url=http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/collections/books/holdings/aldine/|website=Harry Ransom Center: The University of Texas at Austin|accessdate=25 July 2017}}
13. ^{{cite web|title=Aldine Checklist|url=http://exhibits.lib.byu.edu/aldine/Checklist.html|website=Exhibits of BYU Library|accessdate=25 July 2017}}