Pindar.

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Olympia. Pythia. Nemea. Isthmia. Callimachi hymni qui inveniuntur. Dionysius de situ orbis. Licophronis Alexandra, obscurum poema. (Venice): Aldus, (January 1513)

8vo (153 x 97mm.), woodcut Aldine device on title-page, Greek text, modern crushed dark red morocco tooled in gilt and blind,spine gilt in compartments, gilt edges, *2 repaired in lower margin, *5 and 8 slightly narrower, lacking final blank, a few leaves slightly spotted

Provenance

Maurice Bowra, bookplate. Sir Maurice Bowra (1898-1971) was a classical scholar and Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, who wrote many important works on Greek and other literature.

Literature

Censimento 16 CNCE 37448; Renouard 64/9; Texas 105; UCLA 92

Catalogue Note

editio princeps of the works of Pindar. The dedication, to Andrea Navagero, a friend and editor of Aldus who encouraged him to take up printing again after the devastation of Venetian territory from 1509 onwards, talks of the imminent production of more Greek texts, including the works of Plato and of Greek orators, produced in September and April 1513 respectively.

This work has unusual signatures; for the only time in his printing career, Aldus used numbers rather than letters to sign each quire.