Twenty-One Shelves of Aldines

McKim chose to incorporate this printer’s symbol into the bas-relief marble over the doors of Morgan’s Library: a dolphin spiraled around an anchor, the mark of the Aldine Press, the legendary Venetian house founded by Aldus Manutius at the turn of the sixteenth century. It was an appropriate choice. In 1899 Morgan had acquired some 220 Aldines (including this edition of the works of the Roman poet Ovid) as part of his purchase of the extraordinary library of London bookdealer James Toovey (1814–1893). The London Times reporter who visited Morgan’s Library in 1908 enthused, “Aldines? There are twenty-one shelves of them.”