Opera omnia

Aldus Manutius (1449/1452 – 1515) was a humanist and founder of one of the most celebrated publishing houses of all time. He brought many of the Latin and Greek classical authors to the press for the first time and was quintessential in creating an esthetic for the printed book that moved away from the manuscript tradition. This early work of Aldus is the earliest edition of collected works of Aristotle. It appeared in five volumes (Venice, 1495-1498) and represented more leaves of Greek type than had cumulatively been printed since the time of Gutenberg. This volume bears the marginalia and name of Nicholas Leonicus Thomaeus (1456-1531), Venetian scholar and professor of philosophy at the University of Padua. In 1497, he was appointed as the first oficial lecturer on the Greek text of Aristotle in Padua. The John Carter Brown Library has an important collection of around 350 books printed by Aldus Manutius and his successors, that was put together by John Carter Brown in the early 1840s, largely before he started collecting Americana.