584 PROTOTYPOGRAPHY. 



tlieir practical skill, and sometimes even the implements of their 

 business. In Rome, in Venice, in Milan, in Florence, in Naples, in 

 Sicily, the earliest printers bear German names. At Rome, Conrad 

 Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, in 1465 (settled first for a short 

 time Subiaco, near by) ; and Ulric Hahn, who Latinized his name into 

 its equivalent Gallus, a cock ; Silber in 1490, who did the same with 

 his name, making it Argenteus ; and Andreas Fritag in 1492. At 

 Venice, John of Spires, 1469, and his brother Vendelin; John Emeric 

 of TJdenheim and Erhard Radolt. At Milan, Waltdorfer of Ratisbon, 

 better known as Valdarfer, printer of the Decameron of Boccaccio, 

 a copy of which, with his imprint, sold at the Roxburghe sale in 

 London in 1812 for £2,260. At Florence, John Petersen of May- 

 ence and Nicholas of Breslau in 1477. At Naples, Sixtus Riesinger 

 of Strasburg in 1471, Berthold Rying and others. In Sicily (at 

 Messina), Heinrich Aiding in 1478. In 1479, a Bible in Spanish 

 was issued at Valencia in Spain by a German named Lambert 

 Palmaert. (The first press in America was set up throiigh the 

 instrumentality of a German printer at Seville, John Cromberger. 

 It is thought, however^ that he never himself crossed the ocean, but 

 committed the management of an establishment known by his name 

 in the city of Mexico, in 1540, to an agent, a foreman of his, named 

 Pablos.) 



As in other departments of human activity, the practice of the 

 new art soon began to descend from father to son through successive 

 generations. One or two x-emarkable instances of such descent in 

 the families of eminent printers will now be given ; but I shall have 

 to pass down occasionally into the sixteenth century. 



And first, the Italian Aldi. These were Aldo Manuccio of Venice 

 and his descendants. Aldo Latinized his name into Aldus Manutius, 

 to which he sometimes added Romanus, as being a native of the 

 Roman States. He was an accomplished scholar. He invented and 

 largely used the Italic letter, which is said to be a careful reproduc- 

 tion of the handwriting of Petrarch, whose Canzoni and sonnets he 

 printed in this type. He was the first to bring out books in octavo 

 and duodecimo, a form quickly recognized to be an improvement on 

 the cumbersome folio. He and successors of the same name issued 

 editions of all the great works of classic antiquity, and of all the 

 best Italian authors of their own time. Aldo Manuccio married 

 the daughter of Andrea Torresani, a distinguished typographer, the 



