The next Author on my list from Thomas More’s personal library in Utopia is the only non-Greek Author–Aldus Pius Manutius was a 15th century Italian Printer and Humanist. He is best known for establishing the Aldine Press.

Thomas More brought some of his personal library on his voyage to Utopia and left these treasures for the Utopians to “value learning and intellectual pursuits”. There was only one problem—he left one copy of each of the Greek writers [see post for a list of the Authors]. Alas, it is obvious that More gave much thought to the works he would leave behind for the Utopians which included Aldus Manutius’ works on Printing to possibly teach them to print more editions of these Greek Classics for their society.

For this post, I am referencing The World of Aldus Manutius by Martin Lowry from the Permanent Collection in the SMU Fondren Library.

Why would Thomas More choose a book by an Italian printer to leave to his Utopian society?

The first possibility for this is that Thomas More produced his own editions of Utopia in 1491 and concentrated his efforts on producing scholarly editions with fine, careful presswork on the model of Aldus Manutius. He would use typefaces modelled on Manutius. Thomas More introduced the world to Aldus Manutius in Utopia by including Aldine editions of Greek authors in his luggage (258: see footnote: More, Utopia, ed. P. Turner; London, 1965, p. 100).

In 1501, More “shelved his Latin books to take up study of Greek” (261). It is unfortunate, according to Lowry, that More never said precisely what form his Greek studies took. But the Greek texts which More made his hero Raphael give to the Utopians suggest this conclusion: Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Plutarch and Lucian; Hesychius’ Dictionary; the grammars of Gaza and Lascaris (I’ll get to you soon, I promise); Homer, Aristophanes, Euripides and Sophocles; Herodotus and Thucydides—ALL ARE ALDINE EDITIONS!!! (262). Thank you Lowry Martin. I am not alone in my queries of Thomas More’s personal library in Utopia. So cool so cool!

Secondly, Manutius had a great interest in and preservation of Greek manuscripts marking him as an innovative publisher of the 15th century. He wanted to produce Greek texts in their original Greek and Latin forms as he believed that these works by such prolific authors as Aristotle and Aristophanes were pure in translation. He created Greek and Latin typefaces that resembled handwriting of that time, a precursor to the Italic type (Lowry, 109). Erasmus commissioned Mautius to publish his translations of Iphigenia.

Manutius established The Aldine Press in 1494 with its first publication of Constatine Lascaris’ Erotemata cum interpretation. Lascaris is also one of the authors in which More cited in from his personal library to teach the Utopians Grammar and Linguistics.

There were very few Greek titles in print before Manutius established The Aldine Press. Manutius wanted to preserve ancient Greek literature to inspire the world. Through his Aldine Press, which employed many Greek speakers, he published a five-volume folio edition of Aristotle in 1495, nine comedies of Aristophanes in 1498 (see my post on Clouds), and Petrarch’s poems in 1501. He founded the New Academy for Hellenist scholars soon after. He would publish 75 texts by Classical Greek and Byzantine authors (109).

My work here is done! I am one happy camper.

Work Cited

Martin Lowry. The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice. Cornell University Press, 1979