Aldus Manutius (1449-1515), Italian humanist printer. Mauntius was born Teobaldo Mannucci in Bassiano near Rome. He was educated as a humanistic scholar, studying the classics of Latin and Greek. In 1482 he went to study at Mirandola with his friend Giovanni Pico. Two years later he moved to Carpi having been given funds to establish a printing press there by Pico's nephews whom he was to tutor. Manutius was famous for his octavo book format, roughly the size of the modern paperback, that a gentleman could easily carry with him. The first such book was Virgil's Opera, printed in 1501. Manutius commissioned the first italic type in order to compress text for these smaller books. He is also believed to have invented the semicolon; his grandson eventually produced a book on punctuation. This woodcut comes from van Opmeer's Opus chronographicum orbis universi published at Antwerp in 1611.