ΚΑΤΑΚΤΩΝΤΑΣ ΤΟΝ ΚΟΣΜΟ ΤΟΥ ΒΙΒΛΙΟΥ ΣΤΗΝ ΠΡΩΙΜΗ ΝΕΟΤΕΡΗ ΒΕΝΕΤΙΑ: Η ΕΚΔΟΤΙΚΗ ΠΑΡΟΥΣΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΔΗΜΟΣΙΑ ΕΙΚΟΝΑ ΤΟΥ ΑΛΔΟΥ ΜΑΝΟΥΤΙΟΥ

Abstract

The article aims at a better understanding of the editorial practices and strategies that Aldus Manutius adopted to establish himself as a humanist publisher in the printing and intellectual milieu of early modern Venice. It focuses on Manutius’ prefaces and dedications in his editions of the Greek classics and examines how the publisher appropriated and further developed well-known humanist topoi (admiration for the classical past and the pursuit of its material remnants, generosity and dedication to the common good, industriousness), in order to share the ideals that contemporary Venetian patricians espoused and to establish himself in the social and intellectual networks of the elite. The study argues that although scholarship has long ago offered a thoughtful exploration of Manutius’ publishing activity, innovative printing techniques and business strategy, collaborations and financial management, less is known about the publisher’s attentively constructed self-image. It approaches Manutius’ texts primarily as cultural artifacts for the publisher’s self-fashioning in relation to the mythology of the Venetian state and the contemporary imagined communities of the learned elite.