Description

The Venetian printer and scholar Aldo Manuzio (1449 or 1450−1515) was the first printer to produce so-called libri portatiles (portable books), editions of texts without scholarly commentary in octavo, a format that until that time was used only for prayer books. Manuzio published this edition of the poems of Francesco Petrarca (also known as Petrarch, 1304–74) in July 1501, thus producing an outstanding example of his innovative abilities as a printer. Manuzio’s Petrarch was the first portable book in Italian. It was printed using the italic type ...