Printing in Venice

In Venice, not one, but 200 printing shops transformed innovation into a new, successful, business. Today only one of them seems to be remembered, that of Aldo Manuzio. He was a scholar who introduced innovation in typography and book design (invention of Italic fonts and of modern punctuation, promotion of the pocket book format for the classics, of text correctness, of Greek and Hebrew scholarship), and his role as a promoter of European scholarship is justly recognised, but cannot be taken as representative of the social mobility and changes that the Venetian press, and printing in general, brought about to European society. Quantity, not quality, ultimately made the difference.

Credits: Cristina Dondi - Printing R-Evolution exhibition https://www.printingrevolution.eu/virtual-exhibition/where/; Sebastiano Girardi Studio, Venice