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Manutius, his press, and his colleagues were responsible for a number of printing and publishing conventions and innovations that are still in use today. With punchcutters Francesco Griffo and Herman Zapf, Manutius developed a number of well known typefaces such as italic type, Garamond and Aldus. Manutius and his press also standardized modern usage of the semi-colon and the comma as well as the octavo format book – what we would think of as a paperback size today.
Example of an unfolded and folded octavo format book. An octavo book can be printed in this imposition and then folded three times so that the pages are in numerical order.
Further information on Manutius can be found in the numerous texts documenting Aldus, the Aldine Press, and the history of printing. Special Collections & Archives holds several of such texts:
Bibliotecha Aldina. "A catalogue of an extensive and extraordinary assemblage of the productions of the Aldine Press, from its first establishment at Venice in 1494."
Aldo Manuzio: Phrases Linguae Latinae. English Linguistics 1500-1800 (A Collection of Facsimile Reprints).
"Checklist of books printed by Aldus Manutius in Venice," and "The World of Aldus Manutius" by Martin Lowry.
