Randall McLeod: "The Birth of Italics" (Rare Book School Lecture

The 1501 Vergil, an octavo by the Venetian printer Aldo Manuzio, was the first book printed in italics, a fount he created in partnership with Francesco da Bologna, who is celebrated on the back of the title page, but with whom Aldo soon fell out. The fount was immediately copied by Aldo's publishing rivals, as was his octavo format and his presentation of classical texts free of commentary, as well as his introductions-and even his name. (There are many Aldine counterfeits.)
Aldo's italic fount was characterized by a large number of ligatured sorts, which increased during the publications of this and subsequent titles. Through a forensic reading of the ligature distribution and, startlingly, of the five blank or mostly blank pages in this work, one can deduce exacting information about the schedule of production-which did not parallel the narrative order of the book. The lecture focuses specifically on this edition and those around it with which it has intimate connections: the 1501 Horace, 1502 Dante, and 1502 Statius; but, in general, it is informed by the tension between reading a book and gazing at it.
Randall McLeod is the inventor of the McLeod Portable Collator, a stereoscopic device for rapidly comparing two copies of an edition for textual difference. His early textual criticism dealt with late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century English literature and its editorial tradition. For the past two decades he has worked chiefly with continental publication from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries-the Hebrew publications of Estienne in Paris, and the Greek, Latin, and Italian publications of Manuzio in Venice.