This catalogue  presents an outstanding  collection  of 100 artworks  and early printed  books showing  the most famous emblem in the history  of printing,  the dolphin  curled around an anchor.

Adopted  by the Manutius  family to mark  their Aldine editions  from 1502 onwards,  this  device  is also an everlasting  trademark,  with a  version of it still used in today’s publishing industry. Due to its connection with the celebrated publications  by Aldus and  heirs,  it  has been  adapted, copied  and  forged hundreds of times.

Aldus  chose the emblem  of the anchor  and  dolphin to illustrate  the Latin adage festina lente. By claiming it as his  own device, Aldus gave “fresh celebrity to the same device  that was once approved by Vespasian”. It is not only “most familiar,  it  is  highly popular  among  all those  everywhere  in  the world to whom  learning is either familiar or dear. Indeed, it had perhaps become too popular, for the city of Venice, with its many claims to distinction, has none the  less become  distinguished   through the Aldine press, so much  so that any books  shipped  from Venice to foreign  countries immediately  find a  readier market merely  because they  bear that city’s imprint”.

According  to Erasmus  of Rotterdam, it was  the young  Pietro Bembo who had  given Aldus   a silver   denarius  of the Roman  emperor (whom  the Dutch  scholar misidentified  asVespasian) with a dolphin  curled around an anchor on the reverse (Erasmus, Adag. 2.1.1, p. 10). This image, he argued, represented σπεῦδε βραδέως, an  ancient  saying  attributed  to Augustus  here  translated  as festina    lente, which Aldus had  adopted   as a  motto and  which Erasmus  first expounded in the 1508 Aldine  edition of his Adagia.

Aldus   gave his readers  an  initial glimpse  of the motto in July  1498, in the dedication letter of his edition of the  Opera omnia of Angelo Poliziano to the Venetian patrician, humanist  and diarist Marin Sanudo. Claiming  that it had been  Sanudo  himself   who had encouraged  him to  undertake  the Poliziano  project,Aldus  also credited him with a key piece of advice:

“Ex quo itaque accepistiAngeli Politiani,summo viri ingenio et singulari doctrina, lucubrationes excudi formis in aedibus nostris, me, ut editionem accelerem, hortari non desinis,quod summi ingenii labores praestanti  ipse ingenio  legere concupiscas, addito tamen Graeco adagio σπεῦδε βραδέως”

In October 1499, in the dedication letter of the Scriptores astronomici veteres to his great patron and former  student Alberto Pio,prince of Carpi,Aldus for the first time  made reference to the anchor  and dolphin, though without  explicit connection to the motto nor indeed any pictorial  illustration:

“Etsi scio  a  plerisque   me  tarditatis crimine  accusari,Alberte, praesidium  meum, quod plurimum  differe videar,quae toties pollicitus sum studiosis dare,tamen has literatorum  querelas aequo animo ferendas ducimus,tum quia possum vel graviora perferre, dum  prosim, tum  etiam  quod  sum  ipse  mihi optimus   testis  me  semper habere comites, ut oportere aiunt,  delphinum  et ancoram. Nam  et dedimus multa cunctando et damus assidue”

Two  months  later (December   1499), an  image  of the anchor  and  dolphin appeared in the  Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, depicted in the form of one of two hieroglyphic  reliefs encountered by the  narrator  on a  bridge.The  first  time this image  appeared in print, it was  also  the first  time σπεῦδε βραδέως was translated into Latin, though, as  we have seen, here  as festina tarde.

Then, in the second volume  of the  Poetae Christiani Veteres (1501-1502), the anchor and  dolphin made  its initial appearance  as  the printer’s  device.  Subsequently,  in his warning   against the counterfeit  printers  of Lyon issued  in March  1503, Aldus identified  the device as a  guarantee of authenticity, and thus of quality, and depicted it at the bottom  of the  page (see illustation  on page 8).

Despite  attempts to protect it, the press’s collapse in 1598  and the unfolding of time,the Aldine  device kept being exploited  and mishandled by established publishers as  well as  provincial printers across  Europe.The scope was crystal clear:improve the appeal of their  books and increase the status of their output. By using  an  anchor  device, printers  could capitalize  on the authority   and prestige  of the Aldine press, an  act of appropriation  and allusion  that would be  re-enacted  by numerous  publishing  firms  in Aldus’  times  and over the following centuries.  And it is  in that  spirit that  the anchor  device  has lent itself to a variety of uses.

During  the golden age of European Aldine  collecting in the early 19th-century, bibliophiles   started recognising  the importance  of this phenomenon  as   a testimony to Aldus’ unrivalled reputation  long  after his death in 1515. In his Annales  de l’imprimerie   des Alde,Antoine-Augustin Renouard recorded  several early publications containing visual or textual  references to the Manutius, and regarded them  as  indispensable items  in a perfect   Aldine collection. Samuel Butler, Bishop  of  Lichfield, possibly  the greatest  Aldine connoisseur  of all times, further  expanded  this category.   When his comprehensive collection was sold by Christie’s on 1 June 1840, the alert to buyers listed all the different notions of Aldine  collectibles and ended with ‘Books  printed with the Aldine device, (the Anchor), in Italy, France, Spain, England, &c.’.

Through  Aldus, the device reached  such  a universal  fame that we  can retrace it even in early modern works of art; three remarkable  examples are provided herein, ranging   from Renaissance   ceramics   to  17th-century   French and German coins.

Rooted in the history of Aldine bibliophilia, the present catalogue offers a vast array  of non-Aldine   publications bearing the anchor and dolphin,  from the

1570s  to the mid-18th-century.  Most of them were previously  unknown  to standard bibliographies on the Manutius’press,featuring an impressive  number of variants  of remarkable  Geneva imprints to be smuggled  into France  and Italy.

Festina lente