Aldus Manutius: The Invention of the Publisher (Renaissance Lives )

Aldus Manutius: The Invention of the Publisher (Renaissance Lives )

Oren Margolis
$25.00
Publication Date: December 5th, 2023
Publisher:
Reaktion Books
ISBN:
9781789147797
Pages:
208
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Description

A fresh reading of Aldus Manutius, preeminent in the history of the printed book.
 
Aldus Manutius is perhaps the greatest figure in the history of the printed book: in Venice, Europe’s capital of printing, he invented the italic type and issued more first editions of the classics than anyone before or since, as well as Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the most beautiful and mysterious printed book of the Italian Renaissance.
 
This is the first monograph in English on Aldus Manutius in over forty years. It shows how Aldus redefined the role of a book printer, from mere manual laborer to a learned publisher. As a consequence, Aldus participated in the same debates as contemporaries such as Leonardo da Vinci and Erasmus of Rotterdam, making this book an insight into their world too.

About the Author

Oren Margolis is a lecturer in renaissance studies at the University of East Anglia. He is the author of The Politics of Culture in Quattrocento Europe: René of Anjou in Italy.

Praise for Aldus Manutius: The Invention of the Publisher (Renaissance Lives )

"Aldus Manutius is the bibliophile’s bibliophile . . . Anyone who has sat in the park with a paperback has Aldus to thank for freeing the book from the library, the desk, the metal chain that sometimes bound books to shelves . . . Margolis’s biography – the first in English for forty years – was occasioned by the 500th anniversary of Aldus’s death, an anniversary that prompted a flurry of international exhibitions, catalogues and scholarship . . . Margolis’s book is an elegant visual biography that beautifully reproduces woodcuts, fonts, paintings, coins, letters, dedications, prefaces. It’s a cultural history of Aldus the myth, not Aldus the man. A stylish book, worthy of its stylish subject."
— London Review of Books

"Valuable for scholars of the history of the book. . . . Recommended."
— Choice

"Margolis’s study of Aldus Manutius is a hugely thoughtful, stimulating, and innovative reassessment of the career of this key Renaissance figure. He seeks to understand the persistent myths which have accreted around Aldus by recontextualizing them with unexpected and illuminating connections and through detailed and fresh analysis of certain phases and achievements in his life. The result is a vivid and persuasively argued view of Aldus’s cultural significance."
— Stephen Parkin, curator of the British Library's Printed Heritage Collections, 1450–1600

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