细节
September 1502
HERODOTUS. Historiae. Ed. Aldo Manuzio. Super-chancery 2° (319 x 207mm). Collation: AA-RR8 SS4 (AA1r Greek and Latin title Herodoti libri novem quibus Musarum indita sunt nomina. Musarum nomina. Clio. Euterpe. Thalia. Melpomene. Terpsichore. Erato. Polymnia. Urania. Calliope, printer's woodcut device Fletcher no. 2a, AA1v dedication, SS4r register and colophon, SS4v woodcut device Fletcher no. 2). 140 leaves. Greek types 3:84 (text) and 4:79 (dedication), italic 1:80 (title, dedication), roman 10:82 (register, colophon). 55 lines and headline, initial-spaces and guide-letters. (Minor marginal worming in the latter part mended.)
PREFACE: The dedicatee is Giovanni Planza dei Ruffinoni, called Calphurnius or Calpurnius (Bordogna 1443-1503 Padua), who -- although principally a latinist, and editor of Ovid, Statius, etc. -- taught Greek at Padua University. Recalling the popular Greek proverb, one hand washed the other, Aldus makes Calfurnio a present of Herodotus's Nine Muses for his generosity. He has never asked him a textual question on a book in his library, such as Cicero's letters to Atticus or Pausanias, without the request being eagerly granted. He has corrected Herodotus's text from many exemplars, and Clio (bk. I) is now much longer than one usually finds it, even in Lorenzo Valla's translation. [Valla had used the so-called Roman family of manuscripts, whereas Aldus was the first to have access to the 'Florentine' codices.] If Greece is a byword for lies, the charge cannot be laid at Herodotus's door; his text is full of true lessons. If anyone stands up for the truth today, it is Calfurnio.
BINDING: French gold- and blind-tooled russia, vermicular and foliate roll borders on sides, spine tooled in compartments, another roll on turn-ins, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, [probably by Bozerian jeune]. PROVENANCE: a few Greek marginal notes washed out, bookplate removed
EDITIO PRINCEPS, one of the most important to have been edited by the great scholar-printer-publisher himself. N.G. Wilson thinks that Aldus perhaps referred to Pausanias in his preface in the hope that Calfurnio might edit it for him. If so, the dedicatee's death the following year intervened, and the Aldine Pausanias edition was not to see the light until after Aldus's own death (lot 68). Isaac 12782; Adams H-394; Hoffmann II, 229; Dionisotti & Orlandi XL; Murphy 50; Sansoviniana 67; Laurenziana 64; R 35:8
HERODOTUS. Historiae. Ed. Aldo Manuzio. Super-chancery 2° (319 x 207mm). Collation: AA-RR8 SS4 (AA1r Greek and Latin title Herodoti libri novem quibus Musarum indita sunt nomina. Musarum nomina. Clio. Euterpe. Thalia. Melpomene. Terpsichore. Erato. Polymnia. Urania. Calliope, printer's woodcut device Fletcher no. 2a, AA1v dedication, SS4r register and colophon, SS4v woodcut device Fletcher no. 2). 140 leaves. Greek types 3:84 (text) and 4:79 (dedication), italic 1:80 (title, dedication), roman 10:82 (register, colophon). 55 lines and headline, initial-spaces and guide-letters. (Minor marginal worming in the latter part mended.)
PREFACE: The dedicatee is Giovanni Planza dei Ruffinoni, called Calphurnius or Calpurnius (Bordogna 1443-1503 Padua), who -- although principally a latinist, and editor of Ovid, Statius, etc. -- taught Greek at Padua University. Recalling the popular Greek proverb, one hand washed the other, Aldus makes Calfurnio a present of Herodotus's Nine Muses for his generosity. He has never asked him a textual question on a book in his library, such as Cicero's letters to Atticus or Pausanias, without the request being eagerly granted. He has corrected Herodotus's text from many exemplars, and Clio (bk. I) is now much longer than one usually finds it, even in Lorenzo Valla's translation. [Valla had used the so-called Roman family of manuscripts, whereas Aldus was the first to have access to the 'Florentine' codices.] If Greece is a byword for lies, the charge cannot be laid at Herodotus's door; his text is full of true lessons. If anyone stands up for the truth today, it is Calfurnio.
BINDING: French gold- and blind-tooled russia, vermicular and foliate roll borders on sides, spine tooled in compartments, another roll on turn-ins, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, [probably by Bozerian jeune]. PROVENANCE: a few Greek marginal notes washed out, bookplate removed
EDITIO PRINCEPS, one of the most important to have been edited by the great scholar-printer-publisher himself. N.G. Wilson thinks that Aldus perhaps referred to Pausanias in his preface in the hope that Calfurnio might edit it for him. If so, the dedicatee's death the following year intervened, and the Aldine Pausanias edition was not to see the light until after Aldus's own death (lot 68). Isaac 12782; Adams H-394; Hoffmann II, 229; Dionisotti & Orlandi XL; Murphy 50; Sansoviniana 67; Laurenziana 64; R 35:8