therefore, the very singular and striking device (being a pun upon his own name) which we observe in the volumes of APIARIUS.*

Let us now say farewell to these Swiss typographical artists; and regretting that the modern annals of Switzerland do not furnish us with equally interesting specimens of printing, let us hurry forward to

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in the volumes of APIARIUS.] The above device appears in one of these volumes entitled Catalogus Annorum et Principum Geminus ab homine condito usque in præsentem, a nato Christo MDXL, &c. per D. Valerium Anselmam Ryd. 1540, Folio. It is in the frontispiece of the book; the text of which has a profusion of wood-cut ornaments, especially of portraits, in the margin. These portraits are often repeated; and in point of style of art, and merit of execution, are much upon a par with those in Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia Universalis. See vol. i. p. 240.

LORENZO. Venice-I trust?

LYSANDER. Venice, with all my heart! You know how enthusiastically attached I am to the earlier annals of the press of that renowned city-and you have not forgotten, I trust, the honourable mention recently made of both the DE SPIRAS, of JENSON, and of the Scots: yet there is scarcely time for a satisfactory denouement of this interesting dis

cussion....

LISARDO. What mean you ?

LYSANDER. If the day be not far spent,' the Monarch of it, at least, begins to feel symptoms of ennui; and in such a state can I presume to do justice to the ALDUSES, the SESSE, GIOLITI, &c.?

LORENZO. The first of these Venetian printers, upon your list, will cost you but little trouble; as Monsieur RENOUARD has devoted three octavo volumes (of which the last, however, is only a 'Supplement' to the two preceding) to an account of the Annals of the Aldine Press ;* and to his credit and reputation be it affirmed, that we have no where a similar work executed, throughout, with the like precision, interest, and spirit. Its accuracy, upon the whole, is quite delightful; and if I could secure for the same shrewd bibliographer another half century of years, with

* Renouard's Annals of the Aldine Press.] Mr. Renouard published his very useful and popular work under the following title: Annales de l'Imprimerie des Alde, ou Historie des Trois Manuce et de leurs Editions. Par Ant. Aug. Renouard. A Paris. Chez Antoine-Augustin Renouard,' 1803, 8vo. 2 vol. In 1812 (literally following the precept of Horace') the author published his Supplément,' a small octavo volume, consisting of about 160 pages, exclusively of the preface which volume is of course absolutely necessary to the bibliographical student. One of the principal acquisitions of this Supplement is, the more detailed account which it contains of the books printed in the Aldine Press for the 'Venetian Academy.' Of these latter, presently. Nothing can be well added to the eulogy of Lysander respecting the merit of these interesting and important volumes.

powers of mind and of body equally unimpaired, I would urge him most vehemently to do for the STEPHENS in his own country, and for the GIUNTI at Florence, what he has done for his beloved Alduses at Venice!

LISARDO. But to the point. Proceed, dear Lysander. LYSANDER. My beginning will be also a conclusion, I fear; for, as Lorenzo has justly observed, Monsieur Renouard has done almost every thing for the Aldine Triumvirate. Yet I know not why ROCCHA and MAITTAIRE should be defrauded of their due praise; since the latter of these two previous writers has, with his usual enthusiasm and perseverance, contrived to make us fall wonderfully in love with the earlier history of the Aldine press. Nor must I omit to call your particular attention to the very elegant outline of the history of the establishment of the same press exhibited by Mr. Roscoe, in his Life and Pontificate of Leo X.†

RосCHA and MAITTAIRE.] Roccha was an acquaintance of the younger Aldus, the grandson of the first printer of that name; yet his account of the Aldine press, to be found in his Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1591, 4to. Appx. p. 402-3-is rather indirect or subordinate. However, at page 412, he thus ranks the elder Aldus among the more distinguished of ancient printers: Quos inter, ALDUS PIUS MANUTIUS senior primum hâc in re locum occupauit, atque ita, vt omnibus in rebus quidquid exacti, quidquid pulchri, quidquid denique boni appareat, idipsum Typographiæ Aldinæ nomine ex prouerbio nuncupari soleat fuit enim doctissimus, ac non minus re, quàm cognomine, Pius, omnique laude dignus,' &c. A more copious extract from Roccha will be given hereafter. Maittaire has devoted a considerable number of pages (beginning at page 65) of the reprint of the first volume of his Annales, &c. (1733) to an account of the earlier productions of the Aldine Press; and especially of those executed in the Greek language: nor have the labours of Renouard by any means superseded the very scholar-like and satisfactory details of Maittaire. I shall keep him in mind as the following Aldine Memoranda are composed.

+ Mr. Roscoe, in his Life and Pontificate of Leo X.] The account of ALDO MANUZZIO,' as given by Mr. Roscoe, will be found in the second chapter of the work just mentioned; or from page 161 to 170, inclusively, in vol. i. of the second edition of it, in 1806, 8vo. Although this account be comparatively brief

Know then, that the father of the Aldine family, ALDUS PIUS MANUTIUS, or ALDUS PIUS ROMANUS-which you please—appears to have first conceived the plan of setting up a printing office, while he was on a visit at Mirandola, with the celebrated PICUS* of that place, in conjunction

with that which appears in Maittaire and Renouard (to which latter authority, Mr. Roscoe, as far as I can discover, does not appear to make any reference) yet is it executed in a manner at once elegant and interesting. Indeed the frontispiece to the second volume of the first edition of the Life of Leo X., in quarto, contains a large stipled engraving of the head of Aldus-from a supposed original of the pencil of Giovanni Battista, in the possession of the late Mr. James Edwards.

* on a visit at Mirandola with the celebrated Picus.] Let me first briefly remark, that ALDUS was born in the year 1446 or 1447. His Christian name, Aldus, was a contraction of THEOBALDUS. See Geret's edition of Unger's Life of Aldus, p. vii. His sirname was MANUTIUS-to which he sometimes added the appellative of Pius, or BASSIANAS, or ROMANUS. The first of these appellatives was assumed by Aldus from his having been the tutor of ALBERTUS PIUS, a prince of the noble house of Carpi, and to whom the grateful printer dedicated the Organon of Aristotle, in 1495. Renouard, vol. ii. p. 3; Roscoe, vol. i. p. 162: and see note (c) in this latter place. Consult also the interesting note* in Unger's biography of Aldus by Geret, p. viii. The second of these appellatives was derived from the name of the birth-place of the printer—namely, Bassian a small town in the Dutchy of Sermonetta. See Geret or Unger, p. vii.-cxxviii. This title however was dropt by Aldus about the year 1500, when he assumed that of Romanus; because Bassiano was under the juridiction of Rome. As Mr. Roscoe justly observes, the four names, ‹ Aldus Manucius Basianas Romanus,' appear together in the Thesaurus Cornucopia of 1496: see also the Bibl. Spencer. vol. iii. p. 122-where the interesting address of Aldus to the studious,' with the forementioned united appellatives, is given almost entire. The name of Pius' was not assumed till 1503.

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The plan of the Aldine Press, as Lyander properly intimates, is supposed to have been both meditated and matured on a visit paid by its founder to Albertus Pius, and John Picus, at Mirandola, (the residence of the latter distinguished scholar) about the year 1482-on the retreat of Aldus from Ferrara, at that time threatened by an attack from the Venetians. Indeed, an epistle of Aldus to Politian (as referred to by Mr. Roscoe) confirms this inference. Whether a VELLUM COPY of Jenson's Macrobius of 1472-at that time perchance lying upon the table around which these distinguished characters were assembled—might have given an additional stimulus to their resolves, it is not in the compass of my information satisfactorily to prove; but that Venice should have been the place, selected by

with his noble pupil ALBERTUS PIUS. About the year 1488 he is supposed to have taken up his residence at Venice, as the favourite city in which to mature his plans;

Aldus for the establishment of a priuting office, is, to me, 'no matter' whatever of 'marvel-for in what other place, at that period, had the art of typography exhibited such proofs of its capabilities?' To Venice, then, Aldus goes, about the year 1488 or 1489-as, in the address just referred to, of the date of 1496, he says that he writes in the 7th year of the establishment of his office-and adds (frightful to think upon!!) that during the seven years he had never enjoyed one hour of sound sleep.'

To Aldus we are probably first indebted for a series of publications in a minor or octavo form: it being rarely that we observe publications, of the same shape, put forth in the xvth century. The Virgil of 1501 is supposed, not only to be the first attempt at this octavo series, but to exhibit the earliest specimen of the Italic or Cursive type: a character, generally acknowledged as the exclusive ornament or boast of the Aldine press. The cutter of this type was FRANCIS of BOLOGNA; but, if the evidence of Jeronimo Soncino be to be trusted, Aldus has not the honour of having first suggested this elegant form of type. Mr. Singer pointed out to me the following passage-relating to this interesting question-from the Sonnets and Triumphs of Petrarch, published by the said Soncino in 1503, 8vo.; (a volume of extreme rarity, and which, through his means, only very lately, has adorned the Althorp library) wherein it will be seen that Aldus Romanus receiveth rather a sharp box-either upon the right, or left ear, or upon both-in consequence of having taken upon himself the exclusive credit of first suggesting this said form of type. E per mia exhortatione no solo sono venuti quiui li compositori tanto notabili, et sufficienti, quanto sia possibile adire : ma anchora vn nobilissimo sculptore de littere latine græce et hebraice, chiamato. M. Frăcesco. da Bologna. l'igeno delq le certamete credo che in tale exercitio no troue vn altro equale. Perche non solo le vsitate stampe perfectamente sa fare: ma etiam ha excogitato vna noua forma de littera dicta cursiua, o vero căcellaresca. de la quale NON ALDO ROMANO, NE ALTRI che astutamente hanno tētato de le altrui pene adornarse, Ma esso. M. Francesco è stato primo inuentore et designatore: el quale e tucte le forme de littere che mai habbia stampato dicto Aldo ha intagliato, e la præsente forma. cò tanta gratia e venustate, quanta facilmente in essa se comprende.' (Address of the Publisher to Cæsar Borgia.)

This passage is unquestionably curious. Yet Aldus, in the preface of his Virgil, not only claims to be the first who has suggested the adoption of this type--and encircles the brow of Francis of Bologna with a poetic triplet, for having so completely succeeded in the execution of it--but the Senate of Venice, in the year 1502, granted him an exclusive privilege for the use of it; observing-' characteribus utriusque linguæ sic ingeniosè effictis et colligatis, ut couscripti calamo esse uideantur.' See Geret's edition of Unger's Life of Aldus, 1753, 4to. p. xxi.