171-478: Aldus Pius Manutius ( / m ə ˈ nj uː ʃ i ə s / ; Italian : Aldo Pio Manuzio ; c. 1449/1452 – 6 February 1515) was an Italian printer and humanist who founded the Aldine Press . Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preservation of Greek manuscripts mark him as an innovative publisher of his age dedicated to
342-501: A lead -based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a special hand mould , the matrix . The Latin alphabet proved to be an enormous advantage in the process because, in contrast to logographic writing systems , it allowed the type-setter to represent any text with a theoretical minimum of only around two dozen different letters. Another factor conducive to printing arose from
513-490: A boon to scholars. Erasmus was impressed by Manutius; "in a long passage he extols the 'tireless efforts' of Manutius in restoring ancient learning, truly 'a Herculean task,' and he announces that 'Aldus is building up a library which has no other limits than the world itself'." The Palazzo dei Pio chapel in Carpi has a painted mural that includes Aldus Manutius along with Alberto and Leonello Pio. In Bassiano, Manutius's birthplace,
684-514: A compositor into the desired lines of text. Several lines of text would be arranged at once and were placed in a wooden frame known as a galley . Once the correct number of pages were composed, the galleys would be laid face up in a frame, also known as a forme, which itself is placed onto a flat stone, 'bed,' or 'coffin.' The text is inked using two balls , pads mounted on handles. The balls were made of dog skin leather, because it has no pores, and stuffed with sheep's wool and were inked. This ink
855-685: 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 manuscripts and their calligraphy was a model for the casts used for Greek type. Instructions for typesetters and binders 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 ,
1026-630: A few decades. From a single print shop in Mainz , Germany, printing had spread to no less than around 270 cities in Central, Western and Eastern Europe by the end of the 15th century. As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France , Spain , the Netherlands , Belgium , Switzerland , England , Bohemia and Poland . From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book
1197-422: A great scheme. The symbol and phrase were taken from a Roman coin minted during Emperor Vespasian 's reign that was given to Manutius by Pietro Bembo. Manutius's editions of the classics were so highly respected that the dolphin-and-anchor device was almost immediately pirated by French and Italian publishers. Many modern organizations use the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. The device has been used by
1368-499: A hand press connected to a steam engine ." In April 1811, the first production trial of this model occurred. He produced his machine with assistance from German engineer Andreas Friedrich Bauer . In 1814, Koenig and Bauer sold two of their first models to The Times in London , capable of 1,100 impressions per hour. The first edition so printed was on 28 November 1814. They improved the early model so that it could print on both sides of
1539-413: A handheld weapon, a hint that Aldus intended the books in his Portable Library to be the weapons of scholars. It was for these pocket-sized classics Aldus designed the italic font. Manutius converted to the smaller format in 1501 with the publication of Virgil. As time went on, Manutius self-advertised his portable format through the dedication pages he published. Many scholars consider the development of
1710-550: A huge number of civil servants and soldiers recruited from all over the country introduced many more words and idioms from their home languages— ciao is derived from the Venetian word s-cia[v]o ("slave", that is "your servant"), panettone comes from the Lombard word panetton , etc. Only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak the Italian standardized language properly when
1881-401: A large book that was difficult to transport. The Aldine Press removed these inconveniences; Manutius's books were "published without commentary and in smaller sizes, usually octavos of five by eight or four by six inches." His famous octavo editions are often regarded as the first prototype of the mass-market paperback. The octavos were moderately priced considering the known average salaries of
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#17328520636872052-464: A little over one million people in the United States speak Italian at home. Nevertheless, an Italian language media market does exist in the country. In Canada, Italian is the second most spoken non-official language when varieties of Chinese are not grouped together, with 375,645 claiming Italian as their mother tongue in 2016. Italian immigrants to South America have also brought a presence of
2223-657: A local vernacular. These dialects, as they are commonly referred to, evolved from Vulgar Latin over the course of centuries, unaffected by formal standards and teachings. They are not in any sense "dialects" of standard Italian, which itself started off as one of these local tongues, but sister languages of Italian. Mutual intelligibility with Italian varies widely, as it does with Romance languages in general. The Romance languages of Italy can differ greatly from Italian at all levels ( phonology , morphology , syntax , lexicon , pragmatics ) and are classified typologically as distinct languages. The standard Italian language has
2394-535: A major role in rallying support, and opposition, during the lead-up to the English Civil War , and later still the American and French Revolutions through newspapers, pamphlets and bulletins. The advent of the printing press brought with it issues involving censorship and freedom of the press. The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to a huge increase of printing activities across Europe within only
2565-870: A monument was erected to commemorate the 450th year since Manutius's death. The inscription is Manutius's own words: "for the abundance of good books which, we hope, will finally put to flight all ignorance." The quality and popularity of Manutius's work made it more expensive in the 20th century than others published around the same time. In 1991, Martin Lowry found that an auction in New York took place where "initial prices of $ 6,000 – $ 8,000 and $ 8,000 – $ 12,000 were quotes on copies of Decor Puellarum and Aulus Gellius in Jenson's editions: Aldus' Hypnerotomachia Polifili started at $ 25,000 – $ 30,000." A partial list of works translated and published by
2736-448: A paper mill. However, it was not until a 1439 lawsuit against Gutenberg that an official record existed; witnesses' testimony discussed Gutenberg's types, an inventory of metals (including lead), and his type molds. Having previously worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. He was the first to make type from an alloy of lead , tin , and antimony , which
2907-645: A poetic and literary origin in the works of Tuscan writers of the 12th century, and, although the grammar and core lexicon are basically unchanged from those used in Florence in the 13th century, the modern standard of the language was largely shaped by relatively recent events. However, Romance vernacular as language spoken in the Italian Peninsula has a longer history. In fact, the earliest surviving texts that can definitely be called vernacular (as distinct from its predecessor Vulgar Latin) are legal formulae known as
3078-408: A press in its completed form, with tympans attached to the end of the carriage, and with the frisket above the tympans. The tympans, inner and outer, are thin iron frames, one fitting into the other, on each of which is stretched a skin of parchment or a breadth of fine cloth. A woollen blanket or two with a few sheets of paper are placed between these, the whole thus forming a thin elastic pad, on which
3249-618: A real Aldine from a fake. In spite of his efforts, the Lyonese printers were quick to use Manutius's critique to improve their counterfeits. Before the printing press and during the Italian Renaissance, illuminated manuscripts were individually created by a credited artist. When print publishing became popular, woodcuts were used to mass-illuminate works. The woodcuts were often reused in several editions, thereby decreasing their value. These woodcuts soon came to Venice and were viewed as part of
3420-431: A reasonably cost-effective duplicating solution for commerce at this time. The table lists the maximum number of pages which the various press designs could print per hour . General: Printing presses: Other inventions: From old price tables it can be deduced that the capacity of a printing press around 1600, assuming a fifteen-hour workday, was between 3.200 and 3.600 impressions per day. This method almost doubled
3591-417: A renewed interest in linguistics in the 16th century, sparked a debate that raged throughout Italy concerning the criteria that should govern the establishment of a modern Italian literary and spoken language. This discussion, known as questione della lingua (i.e., the problem of the language ), ran through the Italian culture until the end of the 19th century, often linked to the political debate on achieving
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#17328520636873762-558: A result. Starting in late medieval times in much of Europe and the Mediterranean, Latin was replaced as the primary commercial language by languages of Italy, especially Tuscan and Venetian. These varieties were consolidated during the Renaissance with the strength of Italy and the rise of humanism and the arts . Italy came to enjoy increasing artistic prestige within Europe. A mark of
3933-433: A seven-vowel system, consisting of /a, ɛ, e, i, ɔ, o, u/ , as well as 23 consonants. Compared with most other Romance languages, Italian phonology is conservative, preserving many words nearly unchanged from Vulgar Latin . Some examples: Printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth ), thereby transferring
4104-432: A sheet at once. This began the long process of making newspapers available to a mass audience, which helped spread literacy. From the 1820s it changed the nature of book production, forcing a greater standardization in titles and other metadata . Their company Koenig & Bauer AG is still one of the world's largest manufacturers of printing presses today. The steam-powered rotary printing press , invented in 1843 in
4275-561: A sign that read, "Whoever you are, Aldus asks you again and again what it is you want from him. State your business briefly and then immediately go away." Manutius strove for excellence in typography and book design while publishing lower-cost editions. This was carried out under continual difficulties, including problems arising from strikes among his workmen, unauthorized use of Manutius's materials by rivals, and frequent interruptions by war. Before Manutius, there were fewer than ten Greek titles in print, most of which had to be imported from
4446-474: A single language is that they have evolved so that they are no longer mutually intelligible ; this diagnostic is effective if mutual intelligibility is minimal or absent (e.g. in Romance, Romanian and Portuguese), but it fails in cases such as Spanish-Portuguese or Spanish-Italian, as educated native speakers of either pairing can understand each other well if they choose to do so; however, the level of intelligibility
4617-701: A tutor, Manutius published two works for his pupils and their mother. In his late thirties or early forties, Manutius settled in Venice to become a print publisher. He met Andrea Torresano in Venice and the two co-founded the Aldine Press. Manutius is also known as "Aldus Manutius the Elder" to distinguish him from his grandson, Aldus Manutius the Younger . Aldus Manutius was born close to Rome in Bassiano between 1449 and 1452. He grew up in
4788-504: A united Italian state. Renaissance scholars divided into three main factions: A fourth faction claimed that the best Italian was the one that the papal court adopted, which was a mixture of the Tuscan and Roman dialects. Eventually, Bembo's ideas prevailed, and the foundation of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence (1582–1583), the official legislative body of the Italian language, led to
4959-544: A wealthy family during the Italian Renaissance and in his youth was sent to Rome to become a humanist scholar . In Rome , he studied Latin under Gaspare da Verona and attended lectures by Domizio Calderini in the early 1470s. From 1475 to 1478, Manutius studied Greek in Ferrara with Battista Guarino as his teacher. Most of Manutius's early life is rather unknown. According to John Addington Symonds , writing in
5130-427: Is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan , 85% with Sardinian , 82% with Spanish, 80% with Portuguese , 78% with Ladin , 77% with Romanian . Estimates may differ according to sources. One study, analyzing the degree of differentiation of Romance languages in comparison to Latin (comparing phonology , inflection , discourse , syntax , vocabulary , and intonation ), estimated that distance between Italian and Latin
5301-668: Is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire . Italian is the least divergent language from Latin , together with Sardinian (meaning that Italian and Sardinian are the most conservative Romance languages). Spoken by about 85 million people, including 67 million native speakers (2024), Italian is an official language in Italy , San Marino , Switzerland ( Ticino and
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5472-543: Is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than the previously used water-based inks. As printing material he used both paper and vellum (high-quality parchment). In the Gutenberg Bible , Gutenberg made a trial of colour printing for a few of the page headings, present only in some copies. A later work, the Mainz Psalter of 1453, presumably designed by Gutenberg but published under
5643-729: Is also spoken by a minority in Monaco and France, especially in the southeastern part of the country. Italian was the official language in Savoy and in Nice until 1860, when they were both annexed by France under the Treaty of Turin , a development that triggered the " Niçard exodus ", or the emigration of a quarter of the Niçard Italians to Italy, and the Niçard Vespers . Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about
5814-528: Is higher than that between Sardinian and Latin. In particular, its vowels are the second-closest to Latin after Sardinian . As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. Italian is the official language of Italy and San Marino and is spoken fluently by the majority of the countries' populations. Italian is the third most spoken language in Switzerland (after German and French; see Swiss Italian ), although its use there has moderately declined since
5985-455: Is markedly lower between Italian-Spanish, and considerably higher between the Iberian sister languages of Portuguese-Spanish. Speakers of this latter pair can communicate with one another with remarkable ease, each speaking to the other in his own native language without slang/jargon. Nevertheless, on the basis of accumulated differences in morphology, syntax, phonology, and to some extent lexicon, it
6156-498: Is neither a co-official nor a protected language in these countries. Some speakers of Italian are native bilinguals of both Italian (either in its standard form or regional varieties ) and a local language of Italy , most frequently the language spoken at home in their place of origin. Italian is a major language in Europe, being one of the official languages of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and one of
6327-458: Is not difficult to identify that for the Romance varieties of Italy, the first extant written evidence of languages that can no longer be considered Latin comes from the ninth and tenth centuries C.E. These written sources demonstrate certain vernacular characteristics and sometimes explicitly mention the use of the vernacular in Italy. Full literary manifestations of the vernacular began to surface around
6498-425: Is rolled under the platen , using a windlass mechanism. A small rotating handle called the 'rounce' is used to do this, and the impression is made with a screw that transmits pressure through the platen. To turn the screw the long handle attached to it is turned. This is known as the bar or 'Devil's Tail.' In a well-set-up press, the springiness of the paper, frisket, and tympan caused the bar to spring back and raise
6669-626: Is the main working language of the Holy See , serving as the lingua franca (common language) in the Roman Catholic hierarchy as well as the official language of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta . Italian has a significant use in musical terminology and opera with numerous Italian words referring to music that have become international terms taken into various languages worldwide. Almost all native Italian words end with vowels , and
6840-538: Is used, and the town of Chipilo near Puebla, Mexico; each continues to use a derived form of Venetian dating back to the 19th century. Other examples are Cocoliche , an Italian–Spanish pidgin once spoken in Argentina and especially in Buenos Aires , and Lunfardo . The Rioplatense Spanish dialect of Argentina and Uruguay today has thus been heavily influenced by both standard Italian and Italian regional languages as
7011-517: The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition , Manutius was granted citizenship of the town of Carpi on 8 March 1480 where he owned local property, and in 1482 he travelled to Mirandola for a time with his longtime friend and fellow student, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , where he stayed two years to study Greek literature . Pico recommended Manutius to become the tutor of his nephews, Alberto and Leonello Pio, princes of
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7182-501: The Il Globo (Australia) and the La gazzetta del Sud Africa (South Africa). Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language. In the 21st century, technology also allows for the continual spread of the Italian language, as people have new ways to learn how to speak, read, and write languages at their own pace and at any given time. For example,
7353-936: The La Voce del Popolo ( Croatia ), the Corriere d'Italia (Germany), the L'italoeuropeo (United Kingdom), the Passaparola ( Luxembourg ), the America Oggi (United States), the Corriere Canadese and the Corriere Italiano (Canada), the Il punto d'incontro (Mexico), the L'Italia del Popolo ( Argentina ), the Fanfulla (Brazil), the Gente d'Italia ( Uruguay ), the La Voce d'Italia ( Venezuela ),
7524-500: The 42-line Bible . After much experimentation, Gutenberg managed to overcome the difficulties which traditional water-based inks caused by soaking the paper, and found the formula for an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type. A printing press, in its classical form, is a standing mechanism, ranging from 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2.1 m) long, 3 feet (0.91 m) wide, and 7 feet (2.1 m) tall. The small individual metal letters known as type would be set up by
7695-604: 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. Along with Greek classics, the Aldine Press published Latin and Italian authors. Manutius launched Pietro Bembo's career as a writer by publishing De Aetna in 1496, which
7866-672: The Gallo-Italic linguistic panorama of Northern Italy , the Italo-Dalmatian , Neapolitan and its related dialects were largely unaffected by the Franco- Occitan influences introduced to Italy mainly by bards from France during the Middle Ages, but after the Norman conquest of southern Italy , Sicily became the first Italian land to adopt Occitan lyric moods (and words) in poetry. Even in
8037-816: The Grisons ), Corsica , and Vatican City . It has official minority status in Croatia , Slovenian Istria , and the municipalities of Santa Tereza and Encantado in Brazil . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia . Italian is included under the languages covered by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Romania , although Italian
8208-649: The Kingdom of Italy in the Dodecanese ). Italian is widely spoken in Malta , where nearly two-thirds of the population can speak it fluently (see Maltese Italian ). Italian served as Malta's official language until 1934, when it was abolished by the British colonial administration amid strong local opposition. Italian language in Slovenia is an officially recognized minority language in
8379-763: The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia ), although the masses kept speaking primarily their local vernaculars. Italian was also one of the many recognised languages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city because the cities, until recently, were thought of as city-states . Those dialects now have considerable variety . As Tuscan-derived Italian came to be used throughout Italy, features of local speech were naturally adopted, producing various versions of Regional Italian . The most characteristic differences, for instance, between Roman Italian and Milanese Italian are syntactic gemination of initial consonants in some contexts and
8550-462: The League of Cambrai tried to lessen Venice's influence. Manutius reappeared in 1513 with an edition of Plato that he dedicated to Pope Leo X in a preface that compares the miseries of warfare and the woes of Italy with the sublime and tranquil objects of the student's life. With the Aldine Press's increasing popularity, people would come to visit the shop, interrupting Manutius's work. Manutius put up
8721-584: The Mediterranean and medieval diet . The device was also used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns. Gutenberg may have also been inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century and which worked on the same mechanical principles. During the Islamic Golden Age , Arab Muslims were printing texts, including passages from
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#17328520636878892-539: The Placiti Cassinesi from the province of Benevento that date from 960 to 963, although the Veronese Riddle , probably from the 8th or early 9th century, contains a late form of Vulgar Latin that can be seen as a very early sample of a vernacular dialect of Italy. The Commodilla catacomb inscription is also a similar case. The Italian language has progressed through a long and slow process, which started after
9063-610: The Qur’an , embracing the Chinese craft of paper making, developed it and adopted it widely in the Muslim world , which led to a major increase in the production of manuscript texts. In Egypt during the Fatimid era, the printing technique was adopted reproducing texts on paper strips by hand and supplying them in various copies to meet the demand. Gutenberg adopted the basic design, thereby mechanizing
9234-443: The Septuagint , also known as the Greek Old Testament translated from Hebrew , the first-ever to be published; it appeared posthumously in 1518 . 1994 marked the 500th anniversary of Aldus Manutius's first publication. On Manutius, Paul F. Grendler wrote, "Aldus ensured the survival of a large number of ancient texts and greatly facilitated the diffusion of the values, enthusiasms, and scholarship of Italian Renaissance Humanism to
9405-580: The United States by Richard M. Hoe , ultimately allowed millions of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace. Hoe's original design operated at up to 2,000 revolutions per hour where each revolution deposited 4 page images, giving the press a throughput of 8,000 pages per hour. By 1891, The New York World and Philadelphia Item were operating presses producing either 90,000 4-page sheets per hour or 48,000 8-page sheets. In
9576-406: The Western Roman Empire's fall in the 5th century. The language that came to be thought of as Italian developed in central Tuscany and was first formalized in the early 14th century through the works of Tuscan writer Dante Alighieri , written in his native Florentine . Dante's epic poems, known collectively as the Commedia , to which another Tuscan poet Giovanni Boccaccio later affixed
9747-440: The movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution . Modelled on the design of existing screw presses , a single Renaissance movable-type printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying . Gutenberg's newly devised hand mould made possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. His two inventions,
9918-402: The typographical principle , the idea of creating a text by reusing individual characters, was known and had been cropping up since the 12th century and possibly before (the oldest known application dating back as far as the Phaistos disc ). The first movable type was invented by Chinese engineer Bi Sheng in the 11th century during the Song dynasty , and a book dating to 1193 recorded
10089-560: The "new humanist manuscript." The woodcut images "included aspects of both continuity and discontinuity that involved the activity of Manutius, who was called upon to wholly explicate the new potential of the printed book and deal with the crisis of the illumination." Many of the Aldine Press's publications contained illumination, but Manutius let patrons decide the illumination details while he worked to translate and publish. Prefatory letters, popular in first editions of Latin works years before, were also common for Aldine editions. Manutius used
10260-406: The 111 Italian lecturer sections belonging to foreign schools where Italian is taught as a language of culture. As of 2022, Australia had the highest number of students learning Italian in the world. This occurred because of support by the Italian community in Australia and the Italian Government and also because of successful educational reform efforts led by local governments in Australia. From
10431-458: The 13th century in the form of various religious texts and poetry. Although these are the first written records of Italian varieties separate from Latin, the spoken language had probably diverged long before the first written records appeared since those who were literate generally wrote in Latin even if they spoke other Romance varieties in person. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the use of Standard Italian became increasingly widespread and
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#173285206368710602-469: The 1515 Aldine edition of Dante. Manutius did not hold the same power of innovation over Latin classics as with Greek classics because the 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. Cuspinianus let Manutius publish
10773-435: The 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. By the mid-17th century, the first printing presses arrived in colonial America in response to the increasing demand for Bibles and other religious literature. The operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing and lent its name to a new medium of expression and communication, "
10944-438: The 1970s. It is official both on the national level and on regional level in two cantons : Ticino and Grisons . In the latter canton, however, it is only spoken by a small minority, in the Italian Grisons . Ticino, which includes Lugano , the largest Italian-speaking city outside Italy, is the only canton where Italian is predominant. Italian is also used in administration and official documents in Vatican City . Italian
11115-542: The Accursius Press of Milan. Only four Italian towns were authorized to produce Greek publications: Milan, Venice , Vicenza , and Florence , and they only published works by Theocritus , Isocrates , and Homer . Venice printer 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
11286-453: The Aldine Press under Manutius's supervision. Greek editions published during Manutius's lifetime: Partial list of Latin editions published during his lifetime: Partial list of Humanist authors translated and published by the Aldine Press under Manutius's supervision: Italian language Italian ( italiano , pronounced [itaˈljaːno] , or lingua italiana , pronounced [ˈliŋɡwa itaˈljaːna] )
11457-500: The Aldine editions to ask scholarly questions and provide information for his readers. In the preface of Ovid 's Metamorphoses (1502), he argues that Heroides 17, 19, and 21 (the letters of Helen, Hero, and Cudippe, respectively) were the work of the poet Sabinus , whom Ovid refers to as Amores. In another preface Manutius explains how a sundial works. In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Andrea Torresani of Asola . Torresani and Manutius were already business partners, but
11628-417: The Italian dialects has declined in the modern era , as Italy unified under Standard Italian and continues to do so aided by mass media from newspapers to radio to television, diglossia is still frequently encountered in Italy and triglossia is not uncommon in emigrant communities among older speakers. Both situations normally involve some degree of code-switching and code-mixing . Notes: Italian has
11799-439: The Italian language into a lingua franca used not only among clerks, nobility, and functionaries in the Italian courts but also by the bourgeoisie . Italian literature's first modern novel, I promessi sposi ( The Betrothed ) by Alessandro Manzoni , further defined the standard by "rinsing" his Milanese "in the waters of the Arno " ( Florence 's river), as he states in the preface to his 1840 edition. After unification,
11970-497: The Mediterranean. The increasing political and cultural relevance of Florence during the periods of the rise of the Medici Bank , humanism , and the Renaissance made its dialect, or rather a refined version of it, a standard in the arts. The Renaissance era, known as il Rinascimento in Italian, was seen as a time of rebirth, which is the literal meaning of both renaissance (from French) and rinascimento (Italian). During this time, long-existing beliefs stemming from
12141-410: The New Academy, a group of Hellenist scholars, in 1502 to promote Greek studies. Symonds 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
12312-649: The author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author has been entirely lost. Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents , and indices became common, though they previously had not been unknown. The process of reading also changed, gradually moving over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading. Over
12483-569: The book existing in the format of the codex , which had originated in the Roman period . Considered the most important advance in the history of the book prior to printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll at the onset of the Middle Ages (AD 500). The codex holds considerable practical advantages over the scroll format: it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), more compact, and less costly, and both recto and verso sides could be used for writing or printing, unlike
12654-444: The case of Northern Italian languages, however, scholars are careful not to overstate the effects of outsiders on the natural indigenous developments of the languages. The economic might and relatively advanced development of Tuscany at the time ( Late Middle Ages ) gave its language weight, although Venetian remained widespread in medieval Italian commercial life, and Ligurian (or Genoese) remained in use in maritime trade alongside
12825-415: The city of Lyon our books appeared under my name, but full of errors... and deceived unwary buyers due to the similarity of typography and format....Furthermore, the paper is of poor quality and has a heavy odour, and the typography, if you examine it closely, exudes a sort of (as one might phrase it) 'Frenchiness'." He described the counterfeit's typographical errors in detail so that readers might distinguish
12996-630: The colonial period. In the early 19th century, Eritrea was the country with the highest number of Italians abroad, and the Italian Eritreans grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. In Asmara there are two Italian schools, the Italian School of Asmara (Italian primary school with a Montessori department) and the Liceo Sperimentale "G. Marconi" (Italian international senior high school). Italian
13167-437: The complexity of providing a standardized Greek typeface. Manutius published rare manuscripts in their original Greek and Latin forms. He commissioned the creation of typefaces in Greek and Latin resembling the humanist handwriting of his time; typefaces that are the first known precursor of italic type . As the Aldine Press grew in popularity, Manutius's innovations were quickly copied across Italy despite his efforts to prevent
13338-563: The country (some 0.42% of the total population). Their numbers dropped dramatically after World War II following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus , which caused the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Italian was the official language of the Republic of Ragusa from 1492 to 1807. It formerly had official status in Albania due to the annexation of
13509-508: The country to the Kingdom of Italy (1939–1943). Albania has a large population of non-native speakers, with over half of the population having some knowledge of the Italian language. The Albanian government has pushed to make Italian a compulsory second language in schools. The Italian language is well-known and studied in Albania, due to its historical ties and geographical proximity to Italy and to
13680-446: The country. A few hundred Italian settlers returned to Libya in the 2000s. Italian was the official language of Eritrea during Italian colonisation . Italian is today used in commerce, and it is still spoken especially among elders; besides that, Italian words are incorporated as loan words in the main language spoken in the country (Tigrinya). The capital city of Eritrea, Asmara , still has several Italian schools, established during
13851-515: The country. The official census, carried out in 2002, reported 2,258 ethnic Italians ( Istrian Italians ) in Slovenia (0.11% of the total population). Italian language in Croatia is an official minority language in the country, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. The 2001 census in Croatia reported 19,636 ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians ) in
14022-470: The cursive typeface. Manutius commissioned the punchcutter Francesco Griffo of Bologna to create the new typeface. The handwriting reproduced for the many Aldine Press typefaces is a topic of conflicting opinions by scholars; Symonds (1911) suggests Petrarch's handwriting, while the New Aldine Studies presumes the handwriting of scribes Pomponio Leto and Bartolomeo Sanvito was the inspiration for
14193-464: The design and fashion industries, in some sports such as football and especially in culinary terms. In Italy, almost all the other languages spoken as the vernacular —other than standard Italian and some languages spoken among immigrant communities—are often called " Italian dialects ", a label that can be very misleading if it is understood to mean "dialects of Italian". The Romance dialects of Italy are local evolutions of spoken Latin that pre-date
14364-572: The diffusion of Italian television in the country. Due to heavy Italian influence during the Italian colonial period , Italian is still understood by some in former colonies such as Libya. Although it was the primary language in Libya since colonial rule , Italian greatly declined under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi , who expelled the Italian Libyan population and made Arabic the sole official language of
14535-558: The editions he produced. Aldus Manutius introduced the small portable book format with his enchiridia , which revolutionized personal reading and are the predecessor of the modern paperback book. He also helped to standardize use of punctuation including the comma and the semicolon. Manutius wanted to produce Greek texts for his readers because he believed that works by Aristotle or Aristophanes in their original Greek form were pure and unadulterated by translation. Before Manutius, publishers rarely printed volumes in Greek, mainly due to
14706-472: The educated gentlemen was to make the Grand Tour , visiting Italy to see its great historical monuments and works of art. It was expected that the visitor would learn at least some Italian, understood as language based on Florentine. In England, while the classical languages Latin and Greek were the first to be learned, Italian became the second most common modern language after French, a position it held until
14877-458: The establishment of Italian, and as such are sister languages to the Tuscan that was the historical source of Italian. They can be quite different from Italian and from each other, with some belonging to different linguistic branches of Romance. The only exceptions to this are twelve groups considered " historical language minorities ", which are officially recognized as distinct minority languages by
15048-528: The establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the Scientific Revolution . Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before,
15219-433: The fact that it was linguistically an intermediate between the northern and the southern Italian dialects. Thus the dialect of Florence became the basis for what would become the official language of Italy. Italian was progressively made an official language of most of the Italian states predating unification, slowly replacing Latin, even when ruled by foreign powers (such as Spain in the Kingdom of Naples , or Austria in
15390-447: The first copyright laws were passed. On the other hand, the printing press was criticized for allowing the dissemination of information that may have been incorrect. A second outgrowth of this popularization of knowledge was the decline of Latin as the language of most published works, to be replaced by the vernacular language of each area, increasing the variety of published works. The printed word also helped to unify and standardize
15561-600: The first copper movable type. This received limited use compared to woodblock printing. The technology spread outside China, as the oldest printed book using metal movable type was the Jikji , printed in Korea in 1377 during the Goryeo era. Other notable examples include the Prüfening inscription from Germany, letter tiles from England and Altarpiece of Pellegrino II in Italy. However,
15732-577: The first edition of his Latin grammar book the Institutiones grammaticae , published on 9 March 1493. The Aldine Press , established in 1494, had its first publication in March 1495: Erotemata cum interpretatione Latina by Constantine Lascaris . Andrea Torresano and Pier Francesco Barbarigo , nephew of the Doge , Agostino Barbarigo , each held fifty per cent of the press. From Torresano's fifty per cent, Manutius
15903-468: The force required by 90%, while doubling the size of the printed area. With a capacity of 480 pages per hour, the Stanhope press doubled the output of the old style press. Nonetheless, the limitations inherent to the traditional method of printing became obvious. Two ideas altered the design of the printing press radically: First, the use of steam power for running the machinery, and second the replacement of
16074-468: The free website and application Duolingo has 4.94 million English speakers learning the Italian language. According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , every year there are more than 200,000 foreign students who study the Italian language; they are distributed among the 90 Institutes of Italian Culture that are located around the world, in the 179 Italian schools located abroad, or in
16245-426: The hand mould and the movable-type printing press, together drastically reduced the cost of printing books and other documents in Europe, particularly for shorter print runs. From Mainz , the movable-type printing press spread within several decades to over 200 cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than 20 million volumes. In
16416-454: The humanistic littera antica . Manutius commissioned typefaces designed to look like the handwriting of humanists both in Latin and Greek in order to uphold the manuscript tradition. In the New Aldine Studies, Harry George Fletcher III, Pierpont Morgan Library 's curator for printed books and bindings, writes that Manutius intended "to make available in type a face comfortable for its readers" with
16587-482: The imprint of his successors Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer , had elaborate red and blue printed initials. The Printing Revolution occurred when the spread of the printing press facilitated the wide circulation of information and ideas, acting as an "agent of change" through the societies that it reached. Demand for bibles and other religious literature was one of the main drivers of the very rapid initial expansion of printing. Much later, printed literature played
16758-429: The ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper, or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium. In Germany , around 1440, the goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented
16929-483: The island of Corsica (but not in the neighbouring Sardinia , which on the contrary underwent Italianization well into the late 18th century, under Savoyard sway: the island's linguistic composition, roofed by the prestige of Spanish among the Sardinians , would therein make for a rather slow process of assimilation to the Italian cultural sphere ). The rediscovery of Dante's De vulgari eloquentia , as well as
17100-556: The italic type originally commissioned by the Aldine Press. Griffo only made one set of punches for the Aldine Press, which were used until 1559. Griffo's original italic type did not include capital letters, so many of the Aldine Press publications forwent capital letters. The 1502 publication of the Metamorphoses included Manutius's privilege from the Doge of Venice indicating that any use or imitation of Manutius's Greek and Italic typefaces
17271-563: The language has a 7-vowel sound system ('e' and 'o' have mid-low and mid-high sounds). Italian has contrast between short and long consonants and gemination (doubling) of consonants. During the Middle Ages , the established written language in Europe was Latin, although the great majority of people were illiterate, and only few were well versed in the language. In the Italian Peninsula , as in most of Europe, most would instead speak
17442-631: The language to that continent. According to some sources, Italian is the second most spoken language in Argentina after the official language of Spanish, although its number of speakers, mainly of the older generation, is decreasing. Italian bilingual speakers can be found scattered across the Southeast of Brazil as well as in the South. In Venezuela , Italian is the most spoken language after Spanish and Portuguese, with around 200,000 speakers. In Uruguay , people who speak Italian as their home language are 1.1% of
17613-491: The late 18th century when it tended to be replaced by German. John Milton , for instance, wrote some of his early poetry in Italian. Within the Catholic Church , Italian is known by a large part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and is used in substitution for Latin in some official documents. Italian loanwords continue to be used in most languages in matters of art and music (especially classical music including opera), in
17784-525: The late 19th to the mid-20th century, millions of Italians settled in Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Brazil and Venezuela, as well as in Canada and the United States, where they formed a physical and cultural presence. In some cases, colonies were established where variants of regional languages of Italy were used, and some continue to use this regional language. Examples are Rio Grande do Sul , Brazil, where Talian
17955-563: The law. On the other hand, Corsican (a language spoken on the French island of Corsica ) is closely related to medieval Tuscan , from which Standard Italian derives and evolved. The differences in the evolution of Latin in the different regions of Italy can be attributed to the natural changes that all languages in regular use are subject to, and to some extent to the presence of three other types of languages: substrata, superstrata, and adstrata . The most prevalent were substrata (the language of
18126-412: The marriage combined the two partners' shares in the publishing business. After the marriage, Manutius lived at Torresani's house. Shrinking in popularity, in 1506 the Aldine Press was moved to a house now covered by a bank building in the Venice square, Campo Manin . In March 1506, Manutius decided to travel for six months in search of new and reliable manuscripts. While travelling with a guide, Manutius
18297-551: The middle of the 19th century, there was a separate development of jobbing presses , small presses capable of printing small-format pieces such as billheads , letterheads, business cards, and envelopes. Jobbing presses were capable of quick setup, with an average setup time for a small job was under 15 minutes, and quick production. Even on treadle-powered jobbing presses it was considered normal to get 1,000 impressions per hour [iph] with one pressman, with speeds of 1,500 iph often attained on simple envelope work. Job printing emerged as
18468-613: 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's collected works, Pietro Bembo's Asolani , Francesco Colonna 's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , and Dante's Divine Comedy . The 1501 publication of Virgil introduced
18639-669: The monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class . Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto- nationalism and accelerated the development of European vernaculars , to the detriment of Latin 's status as lingua franca . In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale. The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's improved version of
18810-412: The nation was unified in 1861. Italian is a Romance language , a descendant of Vulgar Latin (colloquial spoken Latin). Standard Italian is based on Tuscan , especially its Florentine dialect , and is, therefore, an Italo-Dalmatian language , a classification that includes most other central and southern Italian languages and the extinct Dalmatian . According to Ethnologue , lexical similarity
18981-538: The next 200 years, the wider availability of printed materials led to a dramatic rise in the adult literacy rate throughout Europe. The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge . Within 50 or 60 years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). More people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Book production became more commercialised, and
19152-419: The next month, 6 February, and "with his death, the importance of Italy as a seminal and dynamic force in printing came to an end." Torresani and his two sons carried on the business during the youth of Manutius's children, and eventually Paulus , Manutius's son, born 1512, took over the business. Paulus won a lawsuit against his Torresani relatives for sole ownership of Manutius' italic typeface and in 1539 led
19323-428: The nineteenth-century London firm of William Pickering , and by Doubleday . The international honour society for library and information science, Beta Phi Mu , uses the dolphin and anchor as its insignia. Manutius described his new format of books as "libelli portatiles in formam enchiridii" ("portable small books in the form of a manual"). Enchiridion , described in A Legacy More Lasting than Bronze , also refers to
19494-408: The number of printing presses in Italy grew rapidly and by the year 1500 reached a total of 56, the biggest number of printing presses in all of Europe. This enabled the production of more pieces of literature at a lower cost and Italian, as the dominant language, spread. Italian became the language used in the courts of every state in the Italian Peninsula , as well as the prestige variety used on
19665-630: The openness of vowels, the length of the consonants, and influence of the local language (for example, in informal situations andà , annà and nare replace the standard Italian andare in the area of Tuscany, Rome and Venice respectively for the infinitive "to go"). There is no definitive date when the various Italian variants of Latin—including varieties that contributed to modern Standard Italian—began to be distinct enough from Latin to be considered separate languages. One criterion for determining that two language variants are to be considered separate languages rather than variants of
19836-584: The original inhabitants), as the Italian dialects were most probably simply Latin as spoken by native cultural groups. Superstrata and adstrata were both less important. Foreign conquerors of Italy that dominated different regions at different times left behind little to no influence on the dialects. Foreign cultures with which Italy engaged in peaceful relations with, such as trade, had no significant influence either. Throughout Italy, regional varieties of Standard Italian, called Regional Italian , are spoken. Regional differences can be recognized by various factors:
20007-453: The other hand, almost everyone still speaks the Corsican idiom , which, due to its linguistic proximity to the Italian standard language, appears both linguistically as an Italian dialect and therefore as a carrier of Italian culture, despite the French government's decades-long efforts to cut Corsica off from the Italian motherland. Italian was the official language in Monaco until 1860, when it
20178-583: The page, did not exceed an output of forty pages per day. Of Erasmus 's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469–1536). In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther 's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies. The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as
20349-562: The papacy. This did not stop Aldine Press counterfeits, as there was little penalty for piracy at the time. Manutius attempted to discourage piracy with blunt warnings at the end of his publications, as in Sylvarum libri quinque , by Publius Papinius Statius, where he warned "no one is allowed to print this without penalty." In the Bibliothèque du Roi on 16 March 1503, Manutius tried to warn off those who plagiarized his content, "it happens that in
20520-506: The piracy of Aldine editions. Because of the Aldine Press's growing reputation for meticulous, accurate publications, Dutch philosopher Erasmus sought out Manutius to publish his translations of Iphigenia in Aulis . In his youth, Manutius studied in Rome to become a humanist scholar. He was friends with Giovanni Pico and tutored Pico's nephews, the lords of Carpi, Alberto and Leonello Pio. While
20691-399: The platen, the windlass turned again to move the bed back to its original position, the tympan and frisket raised and opened, and the printed sheet removed. Such presses were always worked by hand. After around 1800, iron presses were developed, some of which could be operated by steam power . The function of the printing press was described by William Skeen in 1872: this sketch represents
20862-406: The population of Italy could speak Standard Italian. He reports that in 1951 that percentage had risen to 87%. The ability to speak Italian did not necessarily mean it was in everyday use, and most people (63.5%) still usually spoke their native dialects. In addition, other factors such as mass emigration, industrialization, and urbanization, and internal migrations after World War II , contributed to
21033-474: The portable book as Manutius's most celebrated contribution to printing and publishing. These mobile books were the first known appearance of an editio minor , a straightforward text. During the 15th century, books were often chained to a reading platform to protect valuable property, requiring the reader to stay stationary. Publishers often added commentary to their published classics. Thus, pages became overloaded with scholarship and serious material which produced
21204-490: The press ". The spread of mechanical movable type printing in Europe in the Renaissance introduced the era of mass communication , which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation , and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke
21375-491: The press for a time. During that time, Desiderius Erasmus asked Manutius to publish his translations of Hecuba and Iphigenia in Aulis through the Aldine Press. Erasmus's original letter to Manutius inquires about the printer's proposed plans: a Greek Plato and a polyglot bible. Through correspondence, the two came to an agreement. In December 1507, the Aldine Press published Iphigenia in Aulis in an 80-page octavo with Erasmus's translation from Greek into Latin. With
21546-431: The press that led to the press's invention included: manufacturing of paper , development of ink, woodblock printing , and invention of eyeglasses . At the same time, a number of medieval products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. Gutenberg took up these far-flung strands, combined them into one complete and functioning system, and perfected
21717-459: The press with the Sons of Aldus imprint alongside his brothers until his death in 1574. The publishing symbol and motto were never wholly abandoned by the Aldine Press until the expiration of their firm in its third generation of operation by Aldus Manutius the Younger . Manutius dreamed of a trilingual Bible but never saw it come to fruition. However, before his death Manutius had begun an edition of
21888-460: The price of paper to one-sixth of parchment and then falling further. Papermaking centers reached Germany a century later. Despite this it appears that the final breakthrough of paper depended just as much on the rapid spread of movable-type printing. Codices of parchment, which in terms of quality is superior to any other writing material , still had a substantial share in Gutenberg's edition of
22059-455: The printing flatbed with the rotary motion of cylinders. Both elements were for the first time successfully implemented by the German printer Friedrich Koenig in a series of press designs devised between 1802 and 1818. Having moved to London in 1804, Koenig soon met Thomas Bensley and secured financial support for his project in 1807. Patented in 1810, Koenig had designed a steam press "much like
22230-440: The printing press: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating. Technologies preceding
22401-420: The printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million copies. In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing between 1,500 and 3,600 impressions per workday. By comparison, Far Eastern printing, where the back of the paper was manually rubbed to
22572-518: The printing process through all its stages by adding a number of inventions and innovations of his own: The screw press which allowed direct pressure to be applied on a flat plane was already of great antiquity in Gutenberg's time and was used for a wide range of tasks. Introduced in the 1st century AD by the Romans , it was commonly employed in agricultural production for pressing grapes for wine and olives for oil, both of which formed an integral part of
22743-501: The printing process. Printing, however, put a demand on the machine quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the pressing power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the printing process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed. The concept of movable type existed prior to 15th century Europe; sporadic evidence that
22914-500: The printing speed and produced more than 40 copies a day. Printing technology reached its peak at this point. At the same time, then, as the printing press in the physical, technological sense was invented, 'the press' in the extended sense of the word also entered the historical stage. The phenomenon of publishing was born. The outstanding difference between the two ends of the Old World was the absence of screw-presses from China, but this
23085-469: The proliferation of Standard Italian. The Italians who emigrated during the Italian diaspora beginning in 1861 were often of the uneducated lower class, and thus the emigration had the effect of increasing the percentage of literates, who often knew and understood the importance of Standard Italian, back home in Italy. A large percentage of those who had emigrated also eventually returned to Italy, often more educated than when they had left. Although use of
23256-528: The pronunciation of stressed "e", and of "s" between vowels in many words: e.g. va bene "all right" is pronounced [vabˈbɛːne] by a Roman (and by any standard Italian speaker), [vaˈbeːne] by a Milanese (and by any speaker whose native dialect lies to the north of the La Spezia–Rimini Line ); a casa "at home" is [akˈkaːsa] for Roman, [akˈkaːsa] or [akˈkaːza] for standard, [aˈkaːza] for Milanese and generally northern. In contrast to
23427-425: The publication of Adagiorum Chiliades , Erasmus helped Manutius proofread a Greek edition of Plutarch's Moralia along with many other Aldine Press publications. Manutius relied on Marcus Musurus , Ioannis Grigoropoulos , and other Greek collaborators to translate for the Aldine Press. He published an edition of minor Greek orators (1508) and the lesser works of Plutarch (1509). Printing work halted again while
23598-415: The publication of Agnolo Monosini 's Latin tome Floris italicae linguae libri novem in 1604 followed by the first Italian dictionary in 1612. An important event that helped the diffusion of Italian was the conquest and occupation of Italy by Napoleon in the early 19th century (who was himself of Italian-Corsican descent). This conquest propelled the unification of Italy some decades after and pushed
23769-479: The referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the Italian Savoyards ) took refuge in Italy in the following years. Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1769 after the Treaty of Versailles . Italian was the official language of Corsica until 1859. Giuseppe Garibaldi called for the inclusion of the " Corsican Italians " within Italy when Rome
23940-507: The reliability of trade and led to the decline of merchant guilds and the rise of individual traders. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution , the mechanics of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press were still essentially unchanged, although new materials in its construction, amongst other innovations, had gradually improved its printing efficiency. By 1800, Lord Stanhope had built a press completely from cast iron which reduced
24111-509: The rest of Europe". "He jettisoned commentary because he felt that it prevented the dialogue between author and reader that the Renaissance prized." The Aldine Press produced more than 100 editions from 1495 to 1505. The majority were Greek classics, but many notable Latin and Italian works were published as well. Aldus often produced small-format editions that were cheap and sold readily. These inexpensive books—the first paperbacks—were, as ever,
24282-440: The scroll. A fourth development was the early success of medieval papermakers at mechanizing paper manufacture. The introduction of water-powered paper mills , the first certain evidence of which dates to 1282, allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese and Muslim papermaking. Papermaking centres began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy , reducing
24453-464: The sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see Relation ) which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public. Incunable are surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the libraries in Europe and North America . The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through
24624-489: The sheet from contact with any thing but the inked surface of the types, when the pull, which brings down the screw and forces the platten to produce the impression, is made by the pressman who works the lever,—to whom is facetiously given the title of "the practitioner at the bar.". Johannes Gutenberg 's work on the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he partnered with Andreas Dritzehn—a man who had previously instructed in gem-cutting —and Andreas Heilmann, owner of
24795-403: The sheet to be printed is laid. The frisket is a slender frame-work, covered with coarse paper, on which an impression is first taken; the whole of the printed part is then cut out, leaving apertures exactly corresponding with the pages of type on the carriage of the press. The frisket when folded on to the tympans, and both turned down over the forme of types and run in under the platten, preserves
24966-492: The spelling and syntax of these vernaculars, in effect 'decreasing' their variability. This rise in importance of national languages as opposed to pan-European Latin is cited as one of the causes of the rise of nationalism in Europe. A third consequence of popularization of printing was on the economy. The printing press was associated with higher levels of city growth. The publication of trade-related manuals and books teaching techniques like double-entry bookkeeping increased
25137-440: The starting costs of Manutius's printing press and gave him lands in Carpi. Manutius determined that Venice was the best location for his work, settling there in 1490. In Venice, Manutius began gathering publishing contracts, at which point he met Andrea Torresano, who was also engaged in print publishing. Torresano and Manutius became lifelong business partners, and for their first contract together Manutius hired Torresano to print
25308-699: The success and accuracy of their first collaboration, Manutius agreed to publish the expanded version of the Adagiorum collectanea Erasmus was working on. Erasmus travelled to Venice, where he spent his first ten months working at the Aldine Press. He lived in Manutius and Torresano's home, where he shared a room with Girolamo Aleandro . His research using Manutius's resources and Greek scholars enabled him to expand his collection of proverbs from 819 entries to 3,260 entries. The Aldine press published this newly expanded collection of proverbs, Adagiorum Chiliades , in 1508. After
25479-464: The teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to be understood from new perspectives as humanists —individuals who placed emphasis on the human body and its full potential—began to shift focus from the church to human beings themselves. The continual advancements in technology play a crucial role in the diffusion of languages. After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century,
25650-462: The time of Constantinople and was home to a large cluster of Greek scholars who travelled 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
25821-411: The time, but they were not cheap. Manutius priced his Latin octavos at 30 soldi , which was a fourth of a ducat . His Greek octavos were double the price at 60 soldi. For context, a master mason would earn about 50 soldi a day to make between 50 and 100 ducats a year. Everyday handwriting in Venice was in cursive , but at the time, printed works imitated formal manuscript hands, either blackletter or
25992-463: The title Divina , were read throughout the peninsula and his written dialect became the "canonical standard" that all educated Italians could understand. Dante is still credited with standardizing the Italian language. In addition to the widespread exposure gained through literature, the Florentine dialect also gained prestige due to the political and cultural significance of Florence at the time and
26163-529: The total population of the country. In Australia, Italian is the second most spoken foreign language after Chinese, with 1.4% of the population speaking it as their home language. The main Italian-language newspapers published outside Italy are the L'Osservatore Romano ( Vatican City ), the L'Informazione di San Marino ( San Marino ), the Corriere del Ticino and the laRegione Ticino ( Switzerland ),
26334-483: The town of Carpi . In Carpi, Manutius shared a close bond with his student, Alberto Pio. At the end of the 1480s, Manutius published two works addressed to his two pupils and their mother, Caterina Pico —both works were published in Venice by Baptista de Tortis: Musarum Panagyris with its Epistola Catherinae Piae (March/May 1487 to March 1491) and the Paraenesis (1490). Giovanni Pico and Alberto Pio's families funded
26505-403: The typeface. Other scholars believe the first Greek typeface was derived from the handwriting of Immanuel Rhusotas, another scribe during the time of Manutius. The Aldine Press commissioned the first Greek script designed "with accents and letters cast separately and combined by the compositor." The typeface was first used in publishing Erotemata by Constantine Lascaris in 1495. The Roman typeface
26676-452: The use of italic print and was produced in higher-than-normal print runs (1,000 rather than the usual 200 to 500 copies). Manutius adopted the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor as his publisher's device in June 1502. The dolphin-and-anchor symbol is associated with the phrase festina lente , meaning "make haste slowly," indicating quickness combined with firmness in the execution of
26847-509: The various techniques employed (imprinting, punching and assembling individual letters) did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted. Tsuen-Hsuin and Needham, and Briggs and Burke suggest that the movable-type printing in China and Korea was rarely employed. Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps. A goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from
27018-637: The working languages of the Council of Europe . It is the third-most-widely spoken native language in the European Union (13% of the EU population) and it is spoken as a second language by 13.4 million EU citizens (3%). Including Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland, Albania and the United Kingdom ) and on other continents, the total number of speakers is approximately 85 million. Italian
27189-548: Was also introduced to Somalia through colonialism and was the sole official language of administration and education during the colonial period but fell out of use after government, educational and economic infrastructure were destroyed in the Somali Civil War . Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia. Although over 17 million Americans are of Italian descent , only
27360-516: Was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy , but King Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it. Italian is generally understood in Corsica by the population resident therein who speak Corsican , which is an Italo-Romance idiom similar to Tuscan. Francization occurred in Nice case, and caused a near-disappearance of the Italian language as many of the Italian speakers in these areas migrated to Italy. In Corsica, on
27531-558: Was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books and proved to be much better suited for printing than all other known materials. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what is considered one of his most ingenious inventions, a special matrix enabling the quick and precise molding of new type blocks from a uniform template. His type case is estimated to have contained around 290 separate letter boxes, most of which were required for special characters, ligatures , punctuation marks , and so forth. Gutenberg
27702-494: Was eventually released by Geoffroy Carles , president of the Milanese Senate. A new, improved edition of Horace (after 30 March 1509) with an accompanying work by Manutius on Horatian metrics dedicated to Carles was contingent on this experience and Manutius's connection with Carles. Manutius wrote his will on 16 January 1515 instructing Giulio Campagnola to provide capital letters for the Aldine Press's italic type. He died
27873-526: Was finished later the same year and Pietro Bembo's De Aetna was the first book published in the new Roman script. Manutius and Griffo's original typeface is the first known model of italic type and was used by Manutius until 1501. Five italic words were printed in St. Catherine of Siena in 1500 and in 1501 an Opera by Virgil was the first completed book in italic type. A falling out between Manutius and Griffo brought Griffo to leave and supply other publishers with
28044-595: Was forbidden. Despite trying to have the typeface protected legally, Manutius could not stop printers outside of Venice from using his work, which led to the typeface's popularity outside of Italy. As the Aldine Press grew in popularity, Aldine counterfeits also increased. Manutius acquired privileges for his printing press from the Venetian Senate, specifically, for "his types, his pioneering octavo format, and even individual texts." Pope Alexander VI in 1502 and Pope Julius II in 1514 granted Manutius printing privileges from
28215-816: Was given one-fifth, but accounts are unclear as to whether Manutius's one-fifth refers to ten per cent of the Aldine Press or ownership exclusively to one-fifth of Torresano's share. The press's first great achievement was a five-volume folio edition of Aristotle . Manutius started the first volume of his Aristotle edition in 1495. Four more volumes were published together in 1497 and 1498. The Aldine Press produced nine comedies of Aristophanes in 1498, and Pietro Bembo edited Petrarch's poems that Manutius published in July 1501. In addition to editing Greek manuscripts, Manutius corrected and improved texts originally published in Florence , Rome, and Milan . The Second Italian War suspended
28386-441: Was in universal use in Europe". In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice . By 1500,
28557-443: Was mirrored by a decline in the use of the dialects. An increase in literacy was one of the main driving factors (one can assume that only literates were capable of learning Standard Italian, whereas those who were illiterate had access only to their native dialect). The percentage of literates rose from 25% in 1861 to 60% in 1911, and then on to 78.1% in 1951. Tullio De Mauro , an Italian linguist, has asserted that in 1861 only 2.5% of
28728-630: Was replaced by the French. This was due to the annexation of the surrounding County of Nice to France following the Treaty of Turin (1860) . It formerly had official status in Montenegro (because of the Venetian Albania ), parts of Slovenia and Croatia (because of the Venetian Istria and Venetian Dalmatia ), parts of Greece (because of the Venetian rule in the Ionian Islands and by
28899-737: Was stopped by border guards of the Marquisate of Mantua who were looking for two criminals. Manutius's guide ran in fear, taking with him all of Manutius's personal effects. This suspicious activity led the guards to arrest Manutius. Manutius knew the Marquis of Mantua, Francesco Gonzaga , and wrote letters to him to explain the situation, but it took six days until Manutius's imprisonment was brought to Gonzaga's attention. While waiting, Manutius spent five days in jail in Casal Romano and another night in Canneto. He
29070-406: 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
29241-420: Was then applied to the text evenly. One damp piece of paper was then taken from a heap of paper and placed on the tympan. The paper was damp as this lets the type 'bite' into the paper better. Small pins hold the paper in place. The paper is now held between a frisket and tympan (two frames covered with paper or parchment). These are folded down, so that the paper lies on the surface of the inked type. The bed
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