The Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia is a special museum in Venice’s quiet Dorsoduro district. Before going inside, we’re taking a stroll through Venetian history. It’s not your average historical tale. Big changes that would affect us all were in the works in Venice – especially in the 15th century.
While the rest of Europe was slogging its way through the Dark Ages, Venetians were busy rediscovering Greek antiquities streaming in from the East. Thanks to wealth generated by East-West trade routes, Venetians had something not heard of in many years – leisure time.
A New Concept – Leisure Time
In Venice, studying all things Greek was the new favorite pastime. Venetians were gaga for all things Greek. They established academies like those in ancient Greece, where people would go and do nothing but study all kinds of stuff.
Orthodox Christian émigrés, exiled from Constantinople by the conquering Turks, settled in Venice. They translated bibles from greek into Italian. Now, for the first time, people in the West could read the Bible for themselves.
After studying Arabic and Greek works on math and optics, Venetian Leon Battista Alberti published a book explaining how to draw in perspective. European painting would never be the same.
Venetians were the first Europeans in 1000 years to chart the stars, study science, and take an interest in history. The rest of Europe would soon follow. The West started to emerge from the Dark Ages. It had to be an exciting time.
Then, in the midst of all this new activity, guess what happened to really send things through the roof? It happened in Germany. You got it! Johannes Gutenberg figured out how to make a really good printing press. Talk about timing!
And Then Along Came Gutenberg
He built his famous press in 1455, and in no time, printing presses were in operation all around Europe. Most of the time, a printer who obtained the new press would print exactly the way Gutenberg did. Documents printed anywhere in Europe looked just like Gutenberg’s original text.
Printing presses arrived in Venice while everyone was still excited about Greek antiquities. Venetians compared Gutenberg-style print to the print they found in ancient Greek documents. Greek printing was gorgeous in comparison.
It didn’t take long for Venetians to go to work on improving Gutenberg type. While inventing a new version of the printed word, they made improvements that we take for granted today. Punctuation, for example.
Before Gutenberg’s printing press, the rules for punctuation were loosey-goosey. (7th Grade english would have been so easy!) The person doing the scribing could make up their own rules as they saw fit.
Along with standards for punctuation, Venetian printers invented the style of type we’re used to seeing today, with upper and lower-case letters, capitals at the start of sentences, etc. Here’s what it looked like…. Nice, eh?
So Now We Have Books, But…
By the year 1500, many books had been printed, but they were big and expensive – not something average folks had access to. Initially, this wasn’t a problem, since most people couldn’t read anyway.
A Gutenberg Bible was the size of a microwave oven. It might weigh 30-50 pounds, depending on whether it was printed on paper or animal skin. Most copies were printed on animal skin. Paper hadn’t really caught on yet in the West.
Then along came a Venetian named Aldous Manutius. He taught Latin and Greek to whoever was willing and able to pay for lessons. But teaching greek without books was difficult.
Italics
Manutius wanted to have small, cheap books for his students, so he invented a new, compressed form of type. The new type came to be known as “italics”, (since it was an Italian invention). It looked just like this.
He started his own printing company, printing the first small, affordable books. Now, the average knave or wench could buy small, affordable books and carry them around as they pleased.
Manutius mainly printed Greek classics, so even more people could read what the ancient Greeks had to say. These were the first real books as we know them. Venice became the printing capital of the world.
Things that were already changing fast started to change even faster. Wild times were on the way!
To be continued…
Note
The photo at the top of this post is of a book printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice, 1501.
