Details
August 1514
ATHENAEUS of Naucratis (fl. ca. 200 A.D.) Deipnosophistae, Gk. Ed. Marcus Musurus. Super-chancery 2° (318 x 206mm). Collation: A-B10 (A1r Greek title and Aldine device f4, A1v dedication, A2r-9v bks. 1-2, A10 blank); a-s8 t4 (bks. 3-15, t3v register and colophon, t4r blank, t4v device f4). 168 leaves. Greek type 3bis:90 (text), italic 1:80 (dedication), roman 12:90 (incidental). 45 lines and 2 headlines. Initial-spaces with guide-letters. (Crease in last leaf, occasional light marginal stain, a few sheets browned.)
PREFACE: Apart from what we learn in Aldus's dedicatory letter, nothing appears to be known about Janos Vértessy. The printer starts by saying how pleased he is for Janos, and for all of Hungary, that he has made such progress in his studies that he can soon bring the Greek Muses back to his native country, having mastered Attic speech. He must know the grave task he has undertaken by coming to Venice to study under Musurus, to be urged on by his uncle Tomas [Bakács], Archbishop of Esztergom, by Filip Gyulai, secretary to the King of Hungary, and by the example of Janos Cesmicki, Bishop of Pécs, who was the first to bring the Latin Muses to Hungary. Under Musurus's tutelage Vértessy will be able to bring both the Latin and Attic Muses with him. Therefore Aldus has resolved to dedicate to him Athenaeus's "Learned Banquet." Much can be learnt from it and from the authors quoted in it.
BINDING: mid-16th-century French limp vellum gilt, sides panelled with fillets, a hatched tool at the angles, arms stamped in the centre, crowned stag rampant, vellum manuscript spine-lining. PROVENANCE: ruled in red throughout, no doubt at the time and place of binding; Rediger, a Silesian family (arms).
EDITIO PRINCEPS. A large number of guests sits at the banquet, representing philosophy, literature, law, medicine and other disciplines. By publishing Athenaeus's only extant work, Musurus and Aldus made accessible to Renaissance students of ancient food, wine and customs, a vast array of fragments from mainly lost authors. As early as the late 1490s Aldus had planned a Greek edition of Athenaeus; a one-page proof of an unrealised edition, printed in greek type 2:114 and containing the epitome of bk. 1, survives at the Pierpont Morgan Library (C. Bühler in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1955, p. 104-06). FINE COPY. Isaac 12837; Adams A-2096; Vicaire 50; Hoffmann I, 394; Dionisotti & Orlandi LXXXV; Murphy 105; Sansoviniana 145; Laurenziana 125; R 67:4
ATHENAEUS of Naucratis (fl. ca. 200 A.D.) Deipnosophistae, Gk. Ed. Marcus Musurus. Super-chancery 2° (318 x 206mm). Collation: A-B10 (A1r Greek title and Aldine device f4, A1v dedication, A2r-9v bks. 1-2, A10 blank); a-s8 t4 (bks. 3-15, t3v register and colophon, t4r blank, t4v device f4). 168 leaves. Greek type 3bis:90 (text), italic 1:80 (dedication), roman 12:90 (incidental). 45 lines and 2 headlines. Initial-spaces with guide-letters. (Crease in last leaf, occasional light marginal stain, a few sheets browned.)
PREFACE: Apart from what we learn in Aldus's dedicatory letter, nothing appears to be known about Janos Vértessy. The printer starts by saying how pleased he is for Janos, and for all of Hungary, that he has made such progress in his studies that he can soon bring the Greek Muses back to his native country, having mastered Attic speech. He must know the grave task he has undertaken by coming to Venice to study under Musurus, to be urged on by his uncle Tomas [Bakács], Archbishop of Esztergom, by Filip Gyulai, secretary to the King of Hungary, and by the example of Janos Cesmicki, Bishop of Pécs, who was the first to bring the Latin Muses to Hungary. Under Musurus's tutelage Vértessy will be able to bring both the Latin and Attic Muses with him. Therefore Aldus has resolved to dedicate to him Athenaeus's "Learned Banquet." Much can be learnt from it and from the authors quoted in it.
BINDING: mid-16th-century French limp vellum gilt, sides panelled with fillets, a hatched tool at the angles, arms stamped in the centre, crowned stag rampant, vellum manuscript spine-lining. PROVENANCE: ruled in red throughout, no doubt at the time and place of binding; Rediger, a Silesian family (arms).
EDITIO PRINCEPS. A large number of guests sits at the banquet, representing philosophy, literature, law, medicine and other disciplines. By publishing Athenaeus's only extant work, Musurus and Aldus made accessible to Renaissance students of ancient food, wine and customs, a vast array of fragments from mainly lost authors. As early as the late 1490s Aldus had planned a Greek edition of Athenaeus; a one-page proof of an unrealised edition, printed in greek type 2:114 and containing the epitome of bk. 1, survives at the Pierpont Morgan Library (C. Bühler in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, 1955, p. 104-06). FINE COPY. Isaac 12837; Adams A-2096; Vicaire 50; Hoffmann I, 394; Dionisotti & Orlandi LXXXV; Murphy 105; Sansoviniana 145; Laurenziana 125; R 67:4