Antoine-Augustin Renouard Publishes the First "Modern" Bibliography of a Press, the Aldine Press

In 1803 Parisian politician, book dealer, printer and bibliographer Antoine-Augustin Renouard issued the first volume of Annales de l'imprimerie des Alde ou histoire des trois Manuce et de leurs éditions. The first edition of this work he completed with a second volume published in 1812. The two volumes are probably the first "modern" separately published bibliography of a printer or printer dynasty.

Renouard continued to perfect and complete this pioneering bibliography of the publications of the Venetian Aldine printing dynasty in a second expanded edition published in 1825, and in his final third edition published in 1834--a work that remains definitive.

Besides a strict scholarly interest in the history of the Aldine press Renouard was undoubtedly motivated by the intense interest in the press among the collectors and scholars of his day, an interest which has continued to the present.