Details
July 1503
BESSARION (Johannes Basilius of Trebizond, 1395-1472, Cardinal). In calumniatorem Platonis libri quatuor. Eiusdem correctio librorum Platonis de legibus Georgio Trapezuntio interprete. Eiusdem de natura & arte adversus eundem Trapezuntium tractatus. Ed. Aldo Manuzio. Super-chancery 2° (300 x 205mm). Collation: a8 (1r title Quae hoc in volumine tractantur ... and device Fletcher f1, 1v Aldus's dedication and the author's summary to bk. 3, 2r-6r table of contents, 6v blank); b-p8 (text, p8r register and colophon, p8v blank). 120 leaves. Roman type 10:82, greek 3:84. 57 lines and headline. Initial-spaces with guide-letters. (Some worming, slightly affecting text in the first two quires, a short clean cut in fo. c1, dampstain in lower inner corners.)
PREFACE: Aldus dedicates Bessarion's refutation of Plato's detractor to the Avignon lawyer and Louis XII's ambassador to Venice (1499-1504), Accurse Maynier, because he is a lover of Plato and will appreciate this newly corrected edition. Besides defending Plato, the work is a veritable guide to private and public conduct. He hopes that Maynier will read these important thoughts when he relaxes from his public duties and will accept the book as a memento of Aldus's affection for him.
In a separate note Aldus relates that when part of bk. 3 was already printed, he was brought a much corrected manuscript of Bessarion's work, the Greek text of which is autograph. With that he has corrected much that was corrupt in the Rome edition [Sweynheym and Pannartz 1469, GW 4183] and added the accents. The manuscript also contains a summary preceding bk. 3, which oddly cannot be found in the Rome edition; in order to preserve it, he has taken care to print it here. [This note and the summary directly follow the dedication on verso of the title. In order to accommodate them at this late stage in the production Aldus may have reprinted the outermost sheet of the preliminary quire, which is different paper from the stock used for the other sheets in quire a and for the rest of the book.]
BINDING: modern blind-stamped brown morocco. PROVENANCE: Johannes Bodze, deacon of the Collegiate Church at Poznan 1599 (inscr., some reading marks); Poznan, Discalced Carmelites, convent of St. Joseph (17th-century inscr.)
Second edition. Bessarion's tutor, George Gemistos Plethon, and other participants in the Council of Florence (organized in 1439 to achieve union of the Greek and Roman Churches) were actively involved in the philosophical controversy on the relative merits of Aristotle and Plato. In 1458 George Trapezuntius brought out his Comparationes Aristotelis et Platonis, an extreme attack on Platonism, which accused it of leading to heresy and immorality. Bessarion's defense circulated in Greek and Latin manuscripts and was printed in Latin during the author's lifetime in 300 copies. The reply incorporates a full exposition of Platonic thought and N.G. Wilson in his From Byzantium to Italy (1992) credits Bessarion with "an important achievement of popularisation." Two appendices (bks. 5 and 6 in the Aldine ed.) criticize Trapezuntius for incompetence, especially that displayed in his Latin version of Plato's Laws.
Although Bessarion had bequeathed his unrivalled collection of Greek manuscripts to the Venetian Republic in 1468, there is no evidence that any of them were ever used for the Aldine editions. Aldus often complains of his defective exemplars, even when excellent witnesses of Bessarion's were available at the Marciana, of which he can hardly have been aware or to which he could never gain access. "Bessarion's own In Calumniatorem Platonis is perhaps the strangest case of all. This was one of the instances where Aldus claimed to have had an autograph manuscript brought to him, and the Marciana contains three manuscripts of the relevant work, at least one of which was definitely in the collection at this time and has been corrected by the author. Not only did Aldus fail to use this source: he printed a draft of the work which differed entirely from that presented by the Venetian codices" (Lowry p. 232). Isaac 12792; Adams B-833; Dionisotti & Orlandi L; Murphy 58; Sansoviniana 83; Laurenziana 77; R 40:5
BESSARION (Johannes Basilius of Trebizond, 1395-1472, Cardinal). In calumniatorem Platonis libri quatuor. Eiusdem correctio librorum Platonis de legibus Georgio Trapezuntio interprete. Eiusdem de natura & arte adversus eundem Trapezuntium tractatus. Ed. Aldo Manuzio. Super-chancery 2° (300 x 205mm). Collation: a8 (1r title Quae hoc in volumine tractantur ... and device Fletcher f1, 1v Aldus's dedication and the author's summary to bk. 3, 2r-6r table of contents, 6v blank); b-p8 (text, p8r register and colophon, p8v blank). 120 leaves. Roman type 10:82, greek 3:84. 57 lines and headline. Initial-spaces with guide-letters. (Some worming, slightly affecting text in the first two quires, a short clean cut in fo. c1, dampstain in lower inner corners.)
PREFACE: Aldus dedicates Bessarion's refutation of Plato's detractor to the Avignon lawyer and Louis XII's ambassador to Venice (1499-1504), Accurse Maynier, because he is a lover of Plato and will appreciate this newly corrected edition. Besides defending Plato, the work is a veritable guide to private and public conduct. He hopes that Maynier will read these important thoughts when he relaxes from his public duties and will accept the book as a memento of Aldus's affection for him.
In a separate note Aldus relates that when part of bk. 3 was already printed, he was brought a much corrected manuscript of Bessarion's work, the Greek text of which is autograph. With that he has corrected much that was corrupt in the Rome edition [Sweynheym and Pannartz 1469, GW 4183] and added the accents. The manuscript also contains a summary preceding bk. 3, which oddly cannot be found in the Rome edition; in order to preserve it, he has taken care to print it here. [This note and the summary directly follow the dedication on verso of the title. In order to accommodate them at this late stage in the production Aldus may have reprinted the outermost sheet of the preliminary quire, which is different paper from the stock used for the other sheets in quire a and for the rest of the book.]
BINDING: modern blind-stamped brown morocco. PROVENANCE: Johannes Bodze, deacon of the Collegiate Church at Poznan 1599 (inscr., some reading marks); Poznan, Discalced Carmelites, convent of St. Joseph (17th-century inscr.)
Second edition. Bessarion's tutor, George Gemistos Plethon, and other participants in the Council of Florence (organized in 1439 to achieve union of the Greek and Roman Churches) were actively involved in the philosophical controversy on the relative merits of Aristotle and Plato. In 1458 George Trapezuntius brought out his Comparationes Aristotelis et Platonis, an extreme attack on Platonism, which accused it of leading to heresy and immorality. Bessarion's defense circulated in Greek and Latin manuscripts and was printed in Latin during the author's lifetime in 300 copies. The reply incorporates a full exposition of Platonic thought and N.G. Wilson in his From Byzantium to Italy (1992) credits Bessarion with "an important achievement of popularisation." Two appendices (bks. 5 and 6 in the Aldine ed.) criticize Trapezuntius for incompetence, especially that displayed in his Latin version of Plato's Laws.
Although Bessarion had bequeathed his unrivalled collection of Greek manuscripts to the Venetian Republic in 1468, there is no evidence that any of them were ever used for the Aldine editions. Aldus often complains of his defective exemplars, even when excellent witnesses of Bessarion's were available at the Marciana, of which he can hardly have been aware or to which he could never gain access. "Bessarion's own In Calumniatorem Platonis is perhaps the strangest case of all. This was one of the instances where Aldus claimed to have had an autograph manuscript brought to him, and the Marciana contains three manuscripts of the relevant work, at least one of which was definitely in the collection at this time and has been corrected by the author. Not only did Aldus fail to use this source: he printed a draft of the work which differed entirely from that presented by the Venetian codices" (Lowry p. 232). Isaac 12792; Adams B-833; Dionisotti & Orlandi L; Murphy 58; Sansoviniana 83; Laurenziana 77; R 40:5