![HERODOTUS (ca 490 - ca 425 B.C.). [Histories, in Greek]. Edited by Aldus Manutius (ca 1452-1515). Venice: Aldus Manutius, September 1502.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/NYR/2005_NYR_01534_0003_000(102116).jpg?w=1)
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HERODOTUS (ca 490 - ca 425 B.C.). [Histories, in Greek]. Edited by Aldus Manutius (ca 1452-1515). Venice: Aldus Manutius, September 1502.
Aldine 2o (299 x 200 mm). Collation: AA-RR8 SS4 (AA1r Greek and Latin title, printer's woodcut anchor-and-dolphin device [Fletcher 2a], AA1v editor's dedicatory letter to Giovanni Planza dei Ruffinoni, called Calpurnius [1443-1503, professor of Greek at Padua University], AA2r text, SS4r register and colophon, SS4v device [Fletcher 2]). 140 leaves. Greek types 3:84 (text) and 4:79 (dedication), italic type 1:80 (title, dedication), roman type 10:82 (register, colophon). 55 lines and headline, initial-spaces with guide-letters. (First and last leaves lightly soiled, tiny marginal wormholes in first few leaves, otherwise generally crisp and tall.) 19th-century half calf, marbled boards (spine label renewed, tightened in binding); brown full morocco folding case. Provenance: marginalia in an early hand (some cropped from binding).
EDITIO PRINCEPS of Herodotus's history of the Persian Wars, one of the most important texts edited by the great scholar-printer-publisher himself. Aldus claims in the dedication that he corrected the text from multiple exemplars, one of the few instances where such a claim by him is justified and can be verified. He was the first to have access to the "Florentine" codices, where Valla had used the so-called Roman family of manuscripts for his translation. The printer's copy was discovered in Nuremberg by Brigitte Mondrain in 1993 (Scriptorium 49 [1995], pp. 263-273). The Herodotus was designed to match the Aldine Thucydides of four months earlier: they share a paper stock, all types and the number of lines per page. Isaac 12782; Renouard 35.8; Murphy 50; Sansoviniana 67; Laurenziana 64; Dionisotti & Orlandi XL.
Aldine 2o (299 x 200 mm). Collation: AA-RR8 SS4 (AA1r Greek and Latin title, printer's woodcut anchor-and-dolphin device [Fletcher 2a], AA1v editor's dedicatory letter to Giovanni Planza dei Ruffinoni, called Calpurnius [1443-1503, professor of Greek at Padua University], AA2r text, SS4r register and colophon, SS4v device [Fletcher 2]). 140 leaves. Greek types 3:84 (text) and 4:79 (dedication), italic type 1:80 (title, dedication), roman type 10:82 (register, colophon). 55 lines and headline, initial-spaces with guide-letters. (First and last leaves lightly soiled, tiny marginal wormholes in first few leaves, otherwise generally crisp and tall.) 19th-century half calf, marbled boards (spine label renewed, tightened in binding); brown full morocco folding case. Provenance: marginalia in an early hand (some cropped from binding).
EDITIO PRINCEPS of Herodotus's history of the Persian Wars, one of the most important texts edited by the great scholar-printer-publisher himself. Aldus claims in the dedication that he corrected the text from multiple exemplars, one of the few instances where such a claim by him is justified and can be verified. He was the first to have access to the "Florentine" codices, where Valla had used the so-called Roman family of manuscripts for his translation. The printer's copy was discovered in Nuremberg by Brigitte Mondrain in 1993 (Scriptorium 49 [1995], pp. 263-273). The Herodotus was designed to match the Aldine Thucydides of four months earlier: they share a paper stock, all types and the number of lines per page. Isaac 12782; Renouard 35.8; Murphy 50; Sansoviniana 67; Laurenziana 64; Dionisotti & Orlandi XL.