Forteguerri, Oratio de laudibus literarum graecarum, Venice, Aldus, 1504, modern morocco gilt in period style

Scipione Forteguerri

Oratio de laudibus literarum graecarum Venetiis habita mense Ianuario M.D.IIII. (Venice: ex Aldi Neacademia, May 1504)

8vo (152 x 98mm.), 15 leaves, a-b⁸ (without final blank), text in italics, modern crushed brown morocco gilt in period style, red speckled edges from an earlier binding

A RARE ALDINE PUBLICATION. This was Forteguerri's inaugural lecture as public teacher of Greek in Venice, which took place in January 1504. He had worked with Aldus regularly as an editor and corrector of Greek texts, often with his name hellenised to Carteromachus, and in this lecture he maintained the superiority of Greek over Latin, also praising Aldus's efforts to produce reliable Greek texts. He was part of Aldus's Neacademia, and the author of its statutes, though by the end of 1504 he had left Venice and he was replaced as lecturer by Leonico Tomeo.

This oration was reprinted in 1517 in Basel by Froben and in 1534 by Jodocus Badius in Paris. Worldcat also records a copy of the 1504 edition in Berlin and in the John Rylands Library in Manchester.

LITERATURE:

Aldo Manuzio tipografo 84; Edit16 19560 (listing 3 locations, Assisi, Venice and London); Aldine Marciane 65 (2 copies); Renouard 46/3; UCLA 83; not in Texas