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Works of the Aldine Press on display now

This month, Special Collections is displaying a number of books from its collection of works of the Aldine Press.  Founded by Renaissance scholar Aldus Manutius (or Aldo Manuzio) in Venice, the Aldine Press is still renowned today  for its attractive typography, excellent book design, and its historical contributions to the scholarship of the late 15th and 16th centuries.  As both a printer and a scholar, Aldus demonstrated to the printing world that scholarly books could be produced finely as well as profitably.  The Aldine Press also contributed to the survival of many ancient Greek and Roman texts and greatly facilitated the diffusion of the values and scholarship of the Italian Renaissance across the rest of Europe.  The library holds over 500 titles produced by the Aldine Press.  In addition, the library has collected books published by the press’s agents in Paris, a selection of the “Lyon forgeries” (unauthorized reproductions of Aldine publications produced in Lyon, France, during the lifetime of Aldus the Elder), as well as a fair number of other sixteenth-century imitations.  This represents one of the finest collections of Aldine and related books in North America.  For more information about the Aldine Collection, view our online exhibit, In Aedibus Aldi.

The exhibit is on display in both Special Collections’ lobby and the reference area outside our reading room.  It is open during Special Collections’ normal operating hours.

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