Aldo Manuzio°

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ALDO MANUZIO°

ALDO MANUZIO ° (1449–1515). Italian humanist, Hebraist, and printer. In 1494 he set up a printing press in Venice which soon became famous. Printing Greek and Latin grammatical works, he appended to several of them the first printed Hebrew grammar for Christian students (lntroductio perbrevis in linguam hebraicam, date of foreword 1501). This was reprinted separately eight times by Aldo himself under a slightly different title (a facsimile reprint was published in 1927). Aldo also printed Leone Ebreo's (Judah *Abrabanel) Dialoghi di Amore (1544, 1545) calling him a convert to Christianity. The type is very similar to that used by Gershom *Soncino. This led to a rather acrimonious competition between the two great printers.

bibliography:

Dukes, in: rej, 1 (1880), 150 ff.; C. Roth, Jews in the Renaissance (1959), 142, 181, 224; A. Marx, Studies in Jewish History and Booklore (1944), index, s.v.Aldus Manucius; M. Marx, in: huca, 11 (1936), 445–6.