Aldo Manuzio (1449/1452 – 6 February 1515) was an Italian humanist, scholar, educator, and the founder of the Aldine Press. Manutius devoted the later part of his life to publishing and disseminating rare texts. His interest in and preservation of Greek manuscripts mark him as an innovative publisher of his age dedicated to the editions he produced. His enchiridia, small portable books, revolutionized personal reading and are the predecessor of the modern paperback.

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Manutius wanted to produce Greek texts for his readers because he believed that works by Aristotle or Aristophanes in their original Greek form were pure and unadulterated by translation. Before Manutius, publishers rarely printed volumes in Greek, mainly due to the complexity of providing a standardized Greek typeface. Manutius published rare manuscripts in their original Greek and Latin forms. He commissioned the creation of typefaces in Greek and Latin resembling humanist handwriting of his time; typefaces that are the first known precursor of italic type. As the Aldine Press grew in popularity, Manutius's innovations were quickly copied across Italy despite his efforts to prevent piracy of Aldine editions.

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Because of the Aldine Press's growing reputation of meticulous, accurate publications, Erasmus sought out Manutius to publish his translations of Iphigenia in Aulis.

In his youth, Manutius studied in Rome to become a humanist scholar. He was friends with Giovanni Pico and tutored Pico's nephews, the princes of Carpi, Alberto and Leonello Pio. While a tutor, Manutius published two works for his pupils and their mother. In his late thirties or early forties Manutius settled in Venice to become a print publisher. He met Andrea Torresani in Venice and the two cofounded the Aldine Press.

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Manutius is also known as "Aldus Manutius the Elder" to distinguish him from his grandson, Aldus Manutius the Younger.

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Aldus Manutius was born close to Rome in Bassiano between 1449 and 1452. He grew up in a wealthy family during the Italian Renaissance and in his youth was sent to Rome to become a humanist scholar. In Rome, he studied Latin under Gaspare da Verona and attended lectures by Domizio Calderini in the early 1470s. From 1475 to 1478, Manutius studied Greek in Ferrara with Guarino da Verona as his teacher.

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Most of Manutius's early life is rather unknown. According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 17, Manutius was granted citizenship of the town of Carpi on 8 March 1480 where he owned local property, and in 1482 he traveled to Mirandola for a time with his longtime friend and fellow student, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, where he stayed two years to study Greek literature.[4] Pico recommended Manutius to become the tutor of his nephews, Alberto and Leonello Pio, princes of the town of Carpi. In Carpi, Manutius shared a close bond with his student, Alberto Pio. At the end of the 1480s, Manutius published two works addressed to his two pupils and their mother, Caterina Pico — both works were published in Venice by Baptista de Tortis: Musarum Panagyris with its Epistola Catherinae Piae (March/May 1487 to March 1491) and the Paraenesis (1490).

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Giovanni Pico and Alberto Pio's families funded the starting costs of Manutius's printing press and gave him lands in Carpi. Manutius determined that Venice was the best location for his work, settling there in 1490.[4] In Venice, Manutius began gathering publishing contracts, at which point he met Andrea Torresani, who was also engaged in print publishing. Torresani and Manutius became lifelong business partners, and for their first contract together Manutius hired Torresani to print the first edition of his Latin grammar book the Institutiones grammaticae, published on 9 March 1493.

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In 1505, Manutius married Maria, the daughter of Andrea Torresani of Asola. Torresani and Manutius were already business partners, but the marriage combined the two partners' shares in the publishing business. After the marriage, Manutius lived at Torresani's house. Shrinking in popularity, in 1506 the Aldine Press was moved to a house now covered by a bank building in the Venice square, Campo Manin.

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In March 1506, Manutius decided to travel for six months in search of new and reliable manuscripts. While traveling with a guide, Manutius was stopped by border guards of the Marquisate of Mantua who were looking for two criminals. Manutius's guide ran in fear, taking with him all of Manutius's personal effects. This suspicious activity led the guards to arrest Manutius. Manutius knew the Marquis of Mantua, Francesco Gonzaga, and wrote letters to him to explain the situation, but it took six days until Manutius's imprisonment was brought to Gonzaga's attention. While waiting, Manutius spent five days in jail in Casal Romano and another night in Canneto. He was eventually released by Geoffroy Carles, president of the Milanese Senate. A new, improved edition of Horace (after 30 March 1509) with an accompanying work by Manutius on Horatian metrics dedicated to Carles was contingent on this experience and Manutius's connection with Carles.

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Manutius wrote his will on 16 January 1515 instructing Giulio Campagnola to provide capital letters for the Aldine Press's italic type. He died the next month, 6 February, and "with his death the importance of Italy as a seminal and dynamic force in printing came to an end." Torresani and his two sons carried on the business during the youth of Manutius's children, and eventually Paulus, Manutius's son, took over the business. The publishing symbol and motto were never wholly abandoned by the Aldine Press until the expiration of their firm in its third generation of operation by Aldus Manutius the Younger.

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Manutius dreamed of a trilingual Bible but never saw it come to fruition. However, before his death Manutius had begun an edition of the Septuagint, also known as the Greek Old Testament translated from Hebrew, the first ever to be published; it appeared posthumously in 1518.

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1994 marked the 500th anniversary of Aldus Manutius's first publication. On Manutius, Paul F. Grendler wrote, "Aldus ensured the survival of a large number of ancient texts and greatly facilitated the diffusion of the values, enthusiasms, and scholarship of Italian Renaissance Humanism to the rest of Europe". "He jettisoned commentary because he felt that it prevented the dialogue between author and reader that the Renaissance prized."