Aeschylus, Tragoediae sex, Venice, Aldus, 1518, red morocco with gilt Aldine device, Blomfield copy

Aeschylus. Αισχυλου τραγωδιαι εξ... Aeschyli Tragoediae sex. (Venice: in the house of Aldo and Andrea Torresano, February 1518)

Editio princeps of the plays of Aeschylus, edited by Gian Francesco Torresano. His preface to the reader emphasizes the continuity of Aldo's program of Greek literature and science, completing herewith the set of Greek tragedians begun with Sophocles (August 1502) and Euripides (February 1503). The source manuscript for Aeschylus derived from the early Byzantine Codex Mediceus, which lacked leaves containing the last 500 lines of Agamemnon, and the opening lines and title of Choephoroi, so that the two were merged as a single play. The missing lines of Agamemnon were first recovered from a fourteenth century manuscript, and the separate play Choephoroi distinguished from it, by Petrus Victorius in the 1557 edition printed in Geneva by Henri Estienne.

8vo (150 x 95 mm). Greek and roman type, 30 lines. collation: a-n⁸ o¹⁰: 114 leaves, foliated. Woodcut Aldine device on title- page and final verso. (Title-page soiled with extended corner; light marginal foxing, cut slightly close at head.)

binding: Nineteenth-century straight-grained red morocco (154 x 100 mm), with Aldine device stamped in gilt, blind-tooled spine with gilt lettering, gilt edges. (Extremities slightly rubbed.)

provenance: Charles James Blomfield (1786-1856, bishop of London and classical scholar, armorial bookplate, and note of presentation dated Fulham, August 1856, to) — Sir David Dundas (1799-1877) — William Salloch, New York, bookseller's label on lower cover. acquisition: Purchased from William Salloch, 1973. references: UCLA 164; Cataldi Palau 33; Adams A262; Edit16 328; Renouard 85/9