.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Opera. Edited by Alexander Sartius. Venice: Aldus Manutius, July 1498
Details
POLITIANUS, Angelus (1454-94)
Opera. Edited by Alexander Sartius. Venice: Aldus Manutius, July 1498
The Powis copy of the first edition of the collected works of the Florentine humanist Politian, with a manuscript poem in praise of the author added by his fellow citizen Albertus Monachus in 1507. The most learned and brilliant among Lorenzo de’ Medici’s courtiers in Renaissance Florence, Politian was a poet, philologist, translator and prose writer. He left an edition of his letters unfinished when he died in September 1494, a project which was taken on by the Bolognese humanist Alessandro Sarti. An edition, of which a single sheet survives, was undertaken at Bologna by Plato de Benedictis, who had printed various of Politian's individual works and a collection of his vernacular writings in 1494, but the project was cut short by Plato's death in August 1496. In the present edition, Aldus adds Politian’s letters, Latin and Greek poems, and several short treatises to the works and translations previously published. A counterfeit edition was published the following year in Brescia, with a false Florentine imprint. Renouard considered the Aldine edition ‘l'une des plus belles qui soient sorties de l'imprimerie Aldine.’ The quotation from the Hebrew Psalms on H8r – used by Politian in his discussion of ancient worship – represents the first use of Hebrew type at Venice (M. Davies, Aldus Manutius: Printer and Publisher of Renaissance Venice, 1995, pp.26 and 50-52).
A neo-Latin encomiastic poem written in heroic couplets has been added to blanks K4v and K5r by the Florentine Albertus Monachus, who identifies himself in a colophon. The poem describes Politian as sent down from the heavens to bestow his scholarship and knowledge upon the peoples of Italy, ending ‘The Latins therefore owe you their freedom, Politian, and all that they have that is brightest’ [trans.]. HC *13218; BMC V, 559; CIBN P-539; Bod-Inc P-422; BSB-Ink P-663; Goff P-886; ISTC ip00886000
Super-chancery folio (312 x 205mm). 452 leaves. 2- to 9-line initial spaces with printed guide-letters (title margins a little browned and spotted with repaired wormholes and a fragment of the top corner lost, discreet wormtracks through the following four leaves, small hole in margin of e8 with stain affecting neighbouring leaves, G1 and G8 browned, ee5 fore-edge a little bumped, kk1 and 10 repaired in margins, repaired tear to text of A8, occasional faint staining mostly affecting margins and the text on a couple of occasions, erased modern pagination running to p.208 at top corners). 18th-century Italian mottled sheep, flat spine gilt (very minor rubbing and small loss at spine head). Provenance: unidentified armorial stamp on title – erased ownership inscription at base of a5 – Edward Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis (1785-1848; inscription, his Aldine collection sold as one lot to Quaritch, who issued a catalogue in 1929) – Clifford Rattey (1886-1970; bookplate on flyleaf, annotated ‘B119’ and ‘AR3’ in pencil; also tipped in are three 1948 letters to Rattey from R[oberto] Weiss, scholar of Renaissance humanism) – W. Senn-Dürck, Basel-Riehen (1904-2001; booklabel, annotated ‘J 54’); by descent.
Opera. Edited by Alexander Sartius. Venice: Aldus Manutius, July 1498
The Powis copy of the first edition of the collected works of the Florentine humanist Politian, with a manuscript poem in praise of the author added by his fellow citizen Albertus Monachus in 1507. The most learned and brilliant among Lorenzo de’ Medici’s courtiers in Renaissance Florence, Politian was a poet, philologist, translator and prose writer. He left an edition of his letters unfinished when he died in September 1494, a project which was taken on by the Bolognese humanist Alessandro Sarti. An edition, of which a single sheet survives, was undertaken at Bologna by Plato de Benedictis, who had printed various of Politian's individual works and a collection of his vernacular writings in 1494, but the project was cut short by Plato's death in August 1496. In the present edition, Aldus adds Politian’s letters, Latin and Greek poems, and several short treatises to the works and translations previously published. A counterfeit edition was published the following year in Brescia, with a false Florentine imprint. Renouard considered the Aldine edition ‘l'une des plus belles qui soient sorties de l'imprimerie Aldine.’ The quotation from the Hebrew Psalms on H8r – used by Politian in his discussion of ancient worship – represents the first use of Hebrew type at Venice (M. Davies, Aldus Manutius: Printer and Publisher of Renaissance Venice, 1995, pp.26 and 50-52).
A neo-Latin encomiastic poem written in heroic couplets has been added to blanks K4v and K5r by the Florentine Albertus Monachus, who identifies himself in a colophon. The poem describes Politian as sent down from the heavens to bestow his scholarship and knowledge upon the peoples of Italy, ending ‘The Latins therefore owe you their freedom, Politian, and all that they have that is brightest’ [trans.]. HC *13218; BMC V, 559; CIBN P-539; Bod-Inc P-422; BSB-Ink P-663; Goff P-886; ISTC ip00886000
Super-chancery folio (312 x 205mm). 452 leaves. 2- to 9-line initial spaces with printed guide-letters (title margins a little browned and spotted with repaired wormholes and a fragment of the top corner lost, discreet wormtracks through the following four leaves, small hole in margin of e8 with stain affecting neighbouring leaves, G1 and G8 browned, ee5 fore-edge a little bumped, kk1 and 10 repaired in margins, repaired tear to text of A8, occasional faint staining mostly affecting margins and the text on a couple of occasions, erased modern pagination running to p.208 at top corners). 18th-century Italian mottled sheep, flat spine gilt (very minor rubbing and small loss at spine head). Provenance: unidentified armorial stamp on title – erased ownership inscription at base of a5 – Edward Herbert, 2nd Earl of Powis (1785-1848; inscription, his Aldine collection sold as one lot to Quaritch, who issued a catalogue in 1929) – Clifford Rattey (1886-1970; bookplate on flyleaf, annotated ‘B119’ and ‘AR3’ in pencil; also tipped in are three 1948 letters to Rattey from R[oberto] Weiss, scholar of Renaissance humanism) – W. Senn-Dürck, Basel-Riehen (1904-2001; booklabel, annotated ‘J 54’); by descent.
Brought to you by
Sophie Meadows
Senior Specialist