Editing Aldus Manutius (section)

=== Latin and Italian classics ===
Along with Greek classics, the Aldine Press published Latin and [[Italian language|Italian]] authors. Manutius launched Pietro Bembo's career as a writer by publishing [[De Aetna|''De Aetna'']] in 1496, which was the Aldine Press's first Latin publication by a contemporary author. The Bembo family hired the Aldine Press to produce accurate texts of [[Dante]] and Petrarch using Bernardo Bembo's personal manuscript collection. Pietro Bembo worked with Manutius from 1501 to 1502 to provide an accurate edition of Dante and Petrarch and also introduced punctuation. Bembo later made a diagram of sins to illustrate the 1515 Aldine edition of Dante.

Manutius did not hold the same power of innovation over Latin classics as with Greek classics because publication of these works started 30 years before his time. To promote the Aldine editions in Latin, Manutius promoted the quality of his publications through his prefaces. Manutius was on the lookout for rare manuscripts, but often found instead missing parts of previously published works. [[Johannes Cuspinian|Cuspinianus]] let Manutius publish the missing parts of Valerius Maximus's work, which Cuspinianus "had found in a manuscript in Vienna." Francesco Negri let Manutius publish the missing text of ''Julius Firmicus'', which Negri found in Romania, and "a manuscript from Britain made an improved edition of Prudentius possible."

The press printed first editions of [[Poliziano|Poliziano's]] collected works, [[Pietro Bembo|Pietro Bembo's]] ''Asolani'', [[Francesco Colonna]]'s ''[[Hypnerotomachia Poliphili]]'', and Dante's ''[[Divine Comedy]]''. The 1501 publication of [[Virgil]] introduced the use of [[italic type|italic print]] and was produced in higher-than-normal print runs (1,000 rather than the usual 200 to 500 copies).

[[image:Bembo - Gli Asolani, Aldo, 1505 (page 202 crop).jpg|thumb|left|Bembo – Gli Asolani, Aldo, 1505 (page 202 crop) - picture of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor, which was Manutius's imprint.]]