The Afterlife of Aldus: Posthumous Fame, Collectors and the Book Trade

This volume presents six papers from a one-day colloquium held at the Warburg Institute in February 2015 on the legacy of Aldus Manutius, marking the 500th anniversary of his death, together with three additional contributions. Rather than examining Aldus’s own output, the nine papers focus on how the notion of ‘Aldine books’ has changed over 500 years in Europe and North America, from the early days of the Aldine press to modern and contemporary book collecting and the antiquarian trade. The volume also includes a catalogue of the exhibition ‘Collecting the Renaissance: The Aldine Press (1494–1598)’, held in the British Library in conjunction with the colloquium. Addressing a wide readership of scholars, booksellers and collectors, The Afterlife of Aldus aims to stimulate further research on areas fundamental for understanding Aldus’s long-lasting fortuna. The conference, the exhibition and this volume received generous financial support from the Bibliographical Society, CERL and Bernard Quaritch Ltd.

Contents

Foreword

From the Printer’s Mind to the Author’s Hand: Paolo Manuzio and His Tre libri di lettere volgari (1556–1560)
      by Lodovica Braida

Strategies and Failures of a Renaissance Publishing Venture: The Accademia Veneziana and the Myth of Aldus
      by Shanti Graheli

The End of the Manutius Dynasty (1597)
      by Angela Nuovo

Five Centuries of Aldine Collecting in Italy: Known and Less-Known Cases
      by Luca Rivali

Aldine Editions in Early Modern France
      by Shanti Graheli

Aldine Collecting and Aristocratic Values in French Bibliophily Before and After the French Revolution
      by François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles and Jean Viardot

Selling Aldus in the UK (c. 1630–2015): Towards a Checklist of British Sale Catalogues of Books Published by the Manuzio Family
      by Paolo Sachet

The Aldine in British Book Trade History: A Look at Three Major Collections
      by Nicholas Poole-Wilson

Aldine Tributaries Collecting Aldus Manutius in the 21st Century
      by G. Scott Clemons

Collecting the Renaissance: The Aldine Press (1494–1598): Catalogue of an Exhibition
      by Jill Kraye, Stephen Parkin and Paolo Sachet

Index of Names