Note 23 — Printers as Men of the World

Aldus Manutius (1450-1515). Aldus' contributions to printing—small capitals, the first Italic, the popularization of the small type page—centered about his wish to help scholars. He wrote to a friend: "We send these Satires to you, my dear Scipio, that they may through their brevity become once more your intimate friends, as they were formerly during your stay at Rome as a young man, when you possessed them as thoroughly in your memory as your own fingers and fingernails."