Thucydides. Venice, Aldus, 1502. eighteenth-century calf gilt

THUCYDIDES

Venice: (in the house of Aldus, May 1502)

Folio (298 x 205mm.), text in Greek, without blank leaves AA8 and OP4, later tan calf gilt, spine gilt in compartments, gilt edges, slipcase, rebacked retaining original spine, binding slightly rubbed and soiled

EDITIO PRINCEPS. Aldus issued Thucydides' narrative of the Peloponnesian War shortly before his Herodotus (see lot 2); both were in the same format, on the same paper, and with the same smaller typeface (copies are often found bound together). The preface is addressed to the Venetian patrician Daniele Renier, a scholar who had provided manuscripts for Aldus to use for this edition.

LITERATURE:

Aldo Manuzio tipografo 60; Edit16 55824; Renouard 1502/4; UCLA 57

PROVENANCE:

Le Comte Foy, armorial bookplate; binder's ticket of Lebrun, Paris, "exposition de 1839"