addition to a growing percentage of printed volumes, a
wealthy bibliophile’s library usually contained a number
of manuscripts, often of great rarity or beauty, though
Duke Federico de Montefeltre of Urbino (1422–82) is said
to have refused to allow any printed books into his
renowned library. A particularly valued but rare category
of Renaissance manuscript to survive is the holograph of
a contemporary writer; a famous early example is a man-
uscript of the Decameron written in BOCCACCIO’s own hand
(Berlin Staatliche Museen Hamilton MS 90).
PETRARCHand Boccaccio were the leading lights of the
first generation of Western scholars to be active collectors
of manuscripts of important classical Latin texts. Classical
Greek texts came within the purview of Western biblio-
philes as contacts between the western and eastern
branches of Christendom increased in the early 15th cen-
tury (a result of the last Byzantine emperors’ attempts to
achieve a rapprochement that would bring the military
forces of the West to the aid of their beleaguered empire).
The fall of CONSTANTINOPLEto the Ottoman Turks in 1453,
followed by that of the Byzantine cultural center at Mistra
in the Peloponnese (1460), accelerated the flow of schol-
ars and manuscripts from East to West.
Wealthy bibliophiles, such as the Spanish diplomat
Diego de HURTADO DE MENDOZA, employed networks of
agents to track down manuscripts in the Levant. Am-
bassadors were themselves often used as agents in the
acquisition of manuscripts; the French historian Jacques-
Auguste De Thou (or Thuanus; 1555–1617) engaged the
French envoy to Constantinople to find manuscripts for
his patron Henry IV. On occasion manuscripts were ob-
tained by more unusual routes: as part-exchange for a
Turkish prisoner or as an element in a dowry.
The collecting of manuscripts and the commissioning
of new copies were complementary in disseminating texts
of the classics. Men like the Florentine bookseller Ves-
pasiano da BISTICCIboth obtained manuscripts for collec-
tors and hired the scribes and illuminators necessary to
have them copied. Other bibliophiles, such as Poggio
BRACCIOLINI, went on manuscript forays in person, scour-
ing monastic and ecclesiastical libraries for classical texts
which they then either bought or had copied. If need
arose, some passionate collectors such as Poggio and
SALUTATIeven did the copying themselves, and the ver-
sions of antique scripts produced by them and the scribes
they trained ultimately influenced the development of
printing types. Identification of individual Renaissance
scribes is not always just a matter of paleographical detec-
tive work; a number of scribes working for important pa-
trons signed their output, among them the Florentines
Antonio Maro and Gherardo del Ciriago, both of whom
were hired to work on commissions from Vespasiano.
Often such people appear not to have been full-time pro-
fessional calligraphers but to have undertaken copying
work to supplement their incomes.
The personal notes added by scribes to the manu-
scripts are an invaluable source not only for the identifi-
cation of the scribes themselves but also often of the
person who commissioned the book and the date and cir-
cumstances of its production. Prestige manuscripts were
normally decorated with the patron’s coat of arms. Occa-
sionally a manuscript produced with no particular buyer
in mind has the space for the coat of arms left blank, to be
filled in after purchase. The illumination of many Renais-
sance manuscripts is sumptuous and often deliberately
modeled on antique or Carolingian motifs; opening pages
have intricate multicolored borders and initials, often with
other decoration such as putti, EMBLEMS, or the portrait of
the person who commissioned it or for whom it was in-
tended as a gift. Magnificent and expensive volumes were
the currency of diplomacy, an acceptable present for a bib-
liophile monarch like MATTHIAS CORVINUSof Hungary, a
pope, or other humanistically minded grandee. Even after
the printed word took over as the successor to the hand-
written, manuscript illuminators continued to embellish
prestigious printed texts for wealthy and discerning pa-
trons.
See also: ANTIQUARIANISM; CALLIGRAPHY; LATIN STUD-
IES; LIBRARIES; TYPOGRAPHY
Further reading: Leighton D. Reynolds and N. G.
Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of
Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press,
3rd ed. 1997).Manutius, Aldus ((Teob)aldo Mannucci, (Teob)aldo
Manuzio) (1449–1515) Italian scholar and printer
After studying Latin and Greek, Aldus became tutor to
PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA’s nephews at Carpi. There he con-
ceived the idea of establishing a printing house at Venice
to publish classical Greek texts, drawing on the resources
of the Venetian libraries and the expertise of the city’s
community of Greek exiles. The ALDINE PRESS(founded
1494/95) produced the first printed editions of nearly all
the major Greek authors, the years 1502–04 alone seeing
editions of Demosthenes, Euripides, Herodotus, Sopho-
cles, and Thucydides. The Cretan Marcus Musurus
(1470–1517) undertook a large share of the scholarly
work involved. Sometime before 1502 Aldus founded his
NEAKADEMIA(Academy) to promote Greek studies; the
names of about 40 members of this club are known and its
famous visitors included ERASMUSand Thomas LINACRE.
When Aldus died the press was carried on at first by his
father-in-law, then after 1533 by his son Paolo, and finally
by Paolo’s son, another Aldus, after which it passed out of
the family’s hands.
See also: PRINTING; TYPOGRAPHY
Further reading: Martin Davies, Aldus Manutius:
Printer and Publisher of Renaissance Venice (Oxford, U.K.:
Oxford University Press, 1995); H. George Fletcher In
Praise of Albertus Manutius: A Quincentenary Exhibition33000 0 MMaannuuttiiuuss,, AAlldduuss