Imprint and Motto
In 1501, Aldus began to use as his publisher's device, the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. His editions of the classics were so highly respected that the dolphin-and-anchor device was almost immediately pirated by French and Italian publishers. More recently, the device has been used by the nineteenth-century London firm of William Pickering, and by Doubleday. Aldus adapted the image from the reverse of ancient Roman coins issued during the reigns of the Emperors Titus and Domitian, AD 80-82. The dolphin and anchor emblem is associated with "Festina lente" (Hasten slowly), a motto that Aldus had begun to use as early as 1499, after receiving a Roman coin from Pietro Bembo, which bore the emblem and motto.
Read more about this topic: Manutius, Publishing Legacy
Famous quotes containing the words imprint and/or motto:
“Those who believe in their truth—the only ones whose imprint is retained by the memory of men—leave the earth behind them strewn with corpses. Religions number in their ledgers more murders than the bloodiest tyrannies account for, and those whom humanity has called divine far surpass the most conscientious murderers in their thirst for slaughter.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“My motto is: “Lord I disbelieve—help thou my unbelief.””
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)