Non-Designer’s Type Book, The, Second Edition

Aldus Manutius

Have you ever wondered why roman type is called roman and italic type is called italic? Well, you can stop losing sleep over it.

Strange as it seems, in fifteenth-century Italy, land of the Romans, very few publications were printed with Roman letters—almost all scholarly or religious works were set in Greek. There weren’t many other sorts of books anyway, except scholarly or religious works. Not many romance novels or horror stories.

When the man Aldus Manutius entered the publishing business with his company called the Dolphin Press, the printing industry was less than fifty years old. But there were already more than a thousand ...