TYPOGRAPHICAL ACADEMY. 19 



ings which presented themselves. Leo X was not insensible 

 to his merit, but repaid it by publishing a bull in 1513,* by 

 which he granted to Aldus, for fifteen years, the sole privi- 

 lege of publishing whatever Greek and Latin books he had 

 printed, or might afterwards print, as well as the exclusive 

 use of the Italic type. Aldus was the intimate friend of the 

 illustrious Picus of Mirandola,f and established a Typo- 

 graphical Academy, which reckoned among its members 

 Erasmus, Cardinal Bembo, and many of the most distin- 

 guished persons of the age. This learned body used to 

 assemble at the house of Manutius to examine the manu- 

 scripts, and to correct and decipher them. The inscription 

 over the door of his room shows the zeal with which Aldus 

 pursued his avocations. It was in Latin, but the translation 

 is this: "Whoever thou art, Aldus begs and conjures thee, 

 that if thou hast occasion to speak to him thou dost finish in 

 a few words, and go away quickly; unless thou comest, like 

 Hercules, to lend thy shoulder to the wearied Atlas. Then 

 thou, and all that come here, will always find something to 

 da." 



FREDERICK. 



What a curious inscription"? 



MRS. F. 



Whimsical, like the style of the age; but it shows the 

 ardor with which he prosecuted those researches to which 

 he devoted his time and his fortune. In short, when we re- 

 flect that the exertions of Manutius rescued so many writings 

 from their insecure existence in manuscript, and thereby ex- 

 tended their circulation that he consequently changed the 

 direction of studies from the narrow bounds of monkish 

 legends to the noblest works of Greece and Rome we must 



* Roscoe's Leo X, c. xi. 



t He died in his 32d year, two months after his friend and com- 

 panion Poliziano, who expired the day on which Charles VIII en- 

 tered Florence, 1494. Both were buried in the church of St. Mark, 

 in that city. 



