Aldine Press

[2] The press was the first to issue printed books in the small octavo size, similar to that of a modern paperback, and intended for portability and ease of reading.

[4] The press enjoyed a monopoly of works printed in Greek in the Republic of Venice, effectively giving it copyright protection.

The firm maintained an agency in Paris, but its commercial success was affected by many counterfeit editions, produced in Lyon and elsewhere.

In 1496, Manutius established his own location of the press in a building called the Thermae in the Sestiere di San Polo on the campo Sant'Agostin in Venice,[6] today numero civico (house number) 2343 San Polo on the Calle della Chiesa (Alley of the Church), now the location of the restaurant Due Colonne.

[6] Though there are two commemorative plaques located on the building numero civico 2311 Rio Terà Secondo, historians regard them to be erroneously placed based on contemporaneous letters addressed to Manutius.

[12] The two Basel editions were introduced by a Latin preface written by the Greek scholar Simon Grynaeus, who dedicated the work to the humanist Thomas More.

[13] Historian Elizabeth Eisenstein claims that the fall of Constantinople in 1453 had placed under threat the importance and survival of Greek scholarship, but that publications such as those by the Aldine Press secured it once more.

Erasmus was one of the scholars learned in Greek with whom the Aldine Press partnered in order to provide accurately translated text.

Adapting this admired and influential roman-faced font, Manutius and Griffo went on to produce a cursive variant, the first of what is now known as italic type.

The roman typeface and italic form created and pioneered by Manutius and Griffo were highly influential in typographic development.

[2] Beginning in 1505, Manutius produced plain texts in a portable form, using the term enchiridion, meaning "handbook" (later misnamed "pocketbook").

Aldus told Erasmus six years later that Bembo had given him a silver coin minted under the Roman Emperor Vespasian bearing an image of this device.

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