Editing Aldus Manutius (section)

===Greek classics===
Before Manutius, there were fewer than ten Greek titles in print, most of which had to be imported from the Accursius Press of Milan. Only four Italian towns were authorized to produce Greek publications: Milan, [[Venice]], [[Vicenza]], and [[Florence, Italy|Florence]], and they only published works by [[Theocritus]], [[Isocrates]], and [[Homer]]. Venice printer [[Johann and Wendelin of Speyer|John Speyer]] produced Greek passages but required the minimal Greek letters to be left blank and later filled in by hand.

Manutius desired to “inspire and refine his readers by inundating them with Greek." He originally came to Venice because of its many Greek resources; Venice held Greek manuscripts from the time of [[Constantinople]] and was home to a large cluster of Greek scholars who traveled there from [[Crete]]. Venice was also where [[Cardinal Bessarion]], in 1468, donated his large Greek manuscript collection. To preserve [[ancient Greek literature]], the Aldine Press commissioned a typeface based on classical Greek manuscripts so that readers could experience the original Greek text more authentically.

While publishing Greek manuscripts, Manutius founded the New Academy, a group of Hellenist scholars, in 1502 to promote Greek studies. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition'' writes that the New Academy's "rules were written in Greek, its members spoke Greek, their names were Hellenized, and their official titles were Greek." Members of the New Academy included Desiderius Erasmus, Pietro Bembo, and [[Scipio Fortiguerra]]. M.J.C. Lowry, a lecturer in history at the University of Warwick, has a different view, regarding the New Academy as a hopeful dream rather than an organized institute.

Manutius spoke Greek in his household, and employed thirty Greek speakers at the Aldine Press. Greek speakers from [[Crete]] prepared and proofed [[Manuscript|manuscripts]] and their calligraphy was a model for the casts used for Greek type. Instructions for [[typesetter]]s and [[Bookbinding|binder]]s were written in Greek, and the prefaces to Manutius's editions were also in Greek. Manutius printed editions of ''Hero and Leander'' by [[Musaeus Grammaticus]], the ''Galeomyomachia'', and the Greek ''Psalter.'' He called these "Precursors of the Greek Library" because they served as guides to the Greek language. Under Manutius's supervision, the Aldine Press published 75 texts by Classical Greek and Byzantine authors.