The Greek Classics. Aldus Manutius. Ed. and trans. N. G. Wilson. I Tatti Renaissance Library 70. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. xvii + 396 pp. $29.95.

Abstract

In a prefatory note to this volume, general editor James Hankins introduces a new "subseries" of the I Tatti Renaissance Library in the history of the book. The dedicatory prefaces of Aldus Manutius, "the greatest scholar-printer of the Renaissance," were the natural place to start. Indeed, when Raphael Hythlodaeus and his companions introduced the Utopians both to ancient literature and the art of printing, it was, so Thomas More tells us, with the Aldine editions of the Greek classics: Aristotle, Theophrastus, Aristophanes, Sophocles, and others, "in the small Aldine type." Presumably their first encounter with Renaissance humanism-its ethos and preoccupations-would have been through these very prefaces. But this volume also represents a departure for I Tatti, as The Greek Classics is the first book in the series given entirely to paratext, and not principally to uncovering the "lost Italian Renaissance" (in Christopher Celenza's memorable locution) of contemporary Latin literature, but to humanism at the coal face in Venice around the turn of the sixteenth century. At the center of this culture was a middle-aged teacher from small-town Lazio who came to Venice and to printing with good connections but no mechanical skills whatsoever. The I Tatti series is very influential, and as such it is to be applauded for a decision that will enhance how the humanist movement is viewed and, importantly, the way the Italian Renaissance can be taught. Aldine books themselves are not especially rare and scholars have for a number of decades had available to them Giovanni Orlandi's handsome (also cumbersome and outof-print) two-volume edition of the prefaces with accompanying notes and Italian translation. Nigel Wilson's edition and English translation make them available to students and more accessible to all. His translation brings to life Aldus's untiring commitment to his vision for the revival of ancient letters through this new invention, while also capturing the earnestness so crucial to the construction of his persona as publisher. Here is one who prefers the "labours of Hercules" to the "featherbeds of Sardanapalus" (53). His enemies are "barbarism" and "incompetence," also "ignoramuses" and "book-buriers." The social dimension of the enterprise is also revealed. "Printers" are other people, distinct from the scholars like himself. Aldus understands how the pretense of uniqueness, inherited from the manuscript book, that is behind the dedicatory preface makes it an ideal promotional tool, for himself or others: "my letters prefacing books printed by us are such that even if they seem to be addressed to an individual, in fact they are composed to be read by the whole scholarly public," he writes, praising Jacopo Antiquario (205); he advertises the offer from his patron Alberto