Details
August 1502 [or the following winter]
SOPHOCLES. Tragaediae septem cum commentariis, Gk. [Ed. John Gregoropoulos of Crete]. Aldine 8° (157 x 93mm). Collation: \ka-g\K8 δ4 (general title, dedication, epigrams of Simonides, Erucius and Dioscorides the Alexandrian from the Anthology, Ajax); \ke-h\K8 υ4 (Electra); \ki-l\K8 μ4 (Oedipus Tyrannus); \kn-o\K8 (Antigone); \kp-s\K8 τ10 (Oedipus Coloneus); \ky-f\K8 ξ10 (Trachiniae); \kc-v aa\K8 ββ4 (Philoctetes, colophon Venetiis in Aldi Romani Academia mense Augusto MDII, register, privilege, woodcut dolphin-and-anchor device Fletcher no. 2). 196 leaves, including 3 blanks and 6 divisional titles. Italic type 1:80 (title, dedication), greek 4:79 modelled on Aldus's own Greek hand and engraved by Francesco Griffo (text). 30 lines and headline, initial-spaces and guide-letters. (Lightly washed and pressed.)
PREFACE: In the dedicatory letter to Janus Lascaris (ca. 1445-1534) Aldus vividly describes a scene in his household as they sat in a semicircle round the fire with the Newacademicians in the cold of winter. At some point Marcus Musurus, Lascaris' grateful pupil, spoke at length in his praise and remarked how pleased the master had been with Aldus's productions when he met him at Milan and Padua the previous July and August. Now that his Newacademy is bringing out Sophocles' seven tragedies in small format, Aldus would like to associate the edition with Lascaris' name and dedicate it to him as a sign of great affection. The scholia [promised on the title] are omitted, but he hopes to publish them shortly as they are important for explaining metre. [It was, in fact, Lascaris who would edit them in 1518, for Angelo Colocci's Medicean press at Rome.]
BINDING: green crushed morocco, gilt lettering, vellum pastedowns, gilt edges, signed by Thibaron-Joly. No other evidence of provenance.
EDITIO PRINCEPS, of long-lasting importance as the best manuscripts were not fully exploited until the nineteenth century. A substantial part of printer's copy survives as St. Petersburg ms. gr. 731. "The Aldine is probably best known for the editor's intervention at Antigone 572. He appears to be the first scholar to propose that the line be given to the heroine, whereas the manuscript tradition is unanimous in assigning it to her sister Ismene ... The Aldine editor's proposal now seems to have been an influential mistake" (Wilson p. 138-39). The Sophocles is the first Aldine edition to make mention of the Greek New Academy in its colophon. Apart from Aldus and John the Cretan, the other founding members were Scipio Fortiguerra, who drafted the statutes, Battista Egnazio, Paolo da Canal, Girolamo Menocchio and Francesco Rosetto. Aldus's Neakademia was both a Greek dining club where somewhat facetiously no language but Greek was allowed to be spoken and a serious new educational movement concerned with the advancement of classical culture.
THE SOPHOCLES IS THE FIRST GREEK BOOK ISSUED IN THE ALDINE PORTABLE FORMAT AND THE FIRST CLASSICAL TEXT PRINTED IN THE SMALLEST AND FINEST ALDINE GREEK TYPE. "Type 4 was a radical change not only in design, but in its typographical application. The small size of the new type must have suggested the need for a new simplicity, and Aldus's hand was an admirable model in this respect ... This final achievement of Francesco Griffo fully deserves the praise accorded to it by Mardersteig. It is true that our eyes turn to it with grateful welcome, unaccustomed as they are to the ligatures and abbreviations of the earlier types. But by any standards it is a masterpiece, not only of engraving skill executed with marvellous homogeneity on a minute scale, but also of exquisitely planned letter fit ... It is not surprising that after this no further development was undertaken: it was a ne plus ultra until the great French engravers of the mid-century, Garamond, Granjon and Haultin, bent their talents to the cutting of greeks" (Barker p. 89). Isaac 12780; Adams S-1438; Legrand I, 77; Hoffmann III, 411; Babcock & Sosower 50; Murphy 48; Dionisotti & Orlandi XXXVIII; Sansoviniana 63-64; Laurenziana 62; Wolfenbüttel 51; In Praise p. 51; R 34:6
SOPHOCLES. Tragaediae septem cum commentariis, Gk. [Ed. John Gregoropoulos of Crete]. Aldine 8° (157 x 93mm). Collation: \ka-g\K8 δ4 (general title, dedication, epigrams of Simonides, Erucius and Dioscorides the Alexandrian from the Anthology, Ajax); \ke-h\K8 υ4 (Electra); \ki-l\K8 μ4 (Oedipus Tyrannus); \kn-o\K8 (Antigone); \kp-s\K8 τ10 (Oedipus Coloneus); \ky-f\K8 ξ10 (Trachiniae); \kc-v aa\K8 ββ4 (Philoctetes, colophon Venetiis in Aldi Romani Academia mense Augusto MDII, register, privilege, woodcut dolphin-and-anchor device Fletcher no. 2). 196 leaves, including 3 blanks and 6 divisional titles. Italic type 1:80 (title, dedication), greek 4:79 modelled on Aldus's own Greek hand and engraved by Francesco Griffo (text). 30 lines and headline, initial-spaces and guide-letters. (Lightly washed and pressed.)
PREFACE: In the dedicatory letter to Janus Lascaris (ca. 1445-1534) Aldus vividly describes a scene in his household as they sat in a semicircle round the fire with the Newacademicians in the cold of winter. At some point Marcus Musurus, Lascaris' grateful pupil, spoke at length in his praise and remarked how pleased the master had been with Aldus's productions when he met him at Milan and Padua the previous July and August. Now that his Newacademy is bringing out Sophocles' seven tragedies in small format, Aldus would like to associate the edition with Lascaris' name and dedicate it to him as a sign of great affection. The scholia [promised on the title] are omitted, but he hopes to publish them shortly as they are important for explaining metre. [It was, in fact, Lascaris who would edit them in 1518, for Angelo Colocci's Medicean press at Rome.]
BINDING: green crushed morocco, gilt lettering, vellum pastedowns, gilt edges, signed by Thibaron-Joly. No other evidence of provenance.
EDITIO PRINCEPS, of long-lasting importance as the best manuscripts were not fully exploited until the nineteenth century. A substantial part of printer's copy survives as St. Petersburg ms. gr. 731. "The Aldine is probably best known for the editor's intervention at Antigone 572. He appears to be the first scholar to propose that the line be given to the heroine, whereas the manuscript tradition is unanimous in assigning it to her sister Ismene ... The Aldine editor's proposal now seems to have been an influential mistake" (Wilson p. 138-39). The Sophocles is the first Aldine edition to make mention of the Greek New Academy in its colophon. Apart from Aldus and John the Cretan, the other founding members were Scipio Fortiguerra, who drafted the statutes, Battista Egnazio, Paolo da Canal, Girolamo Menocchio and Francesco Rosetto. Aldus's Neakademia was both a Greek dining club where somewhat facetiously no language but Greek was allowed to be spoken and a serious new educational movement concerned with the advancement of classical culture.
THE SOPHOCLES IS THE FIRST GREEK BOOK ISSUED IN THE ALDINE PORTABLE FORMAT AND THE FIRST CLASSICAL TEXT PRINTED IN THE SMALLEST AND FINEST ALDINE GREEK TYPE. "Type 4 was a radical change not only in design, but in its typographical application. The small size of the new type must have suggested the need for a new simplicity, and Aldus's hand was an admirable model in this respect ... This final achievement of Francesco Griffo fully deserves the praise accorded to it by Mardersteig. It is true that our eyes turn to it with grateful welcome, unaccustomed as they are to the ligatures and abbreviations of the earlier types. But by any standards it is a masterpiece, not only of engraving skill executed with marvellous homogeneity on a minute scale, but also of exquisitely planned letter fit ... It is not surprising that after this no further development was undertaken: it was a ne plus ultra until the great French engravers of the mid-century, Garamond, Granjon and Haultin, bent their talents to the cutting of greeks" (Barker p. 89). Isaac 12780; Adams S-1438; Legrand I, 77; Hoffmann III, 411; Babcock & Sosower 50; Murphy 48; Dionisotti & Orlandi XXXVIII; Sansoviniana 63-64; Laurenziana 62; Wolfenbüttel 51; In Praise p. 51; R 34:6