Chrysoloras, Erotemata Guarini, Reggio Emilia, 1501, later red morocco gilt, Dampier-Chatsworth copy

Property from the Loverdos Collection

Manuel Chrysoloras

Erotemata Guarini. Reggio Emilia: Benedetto Manzi for Simone Bombace, Pontico Virunio and Dionigi Bertocchi, 10 July 1501

8vo (143 x 87mm.), ruled in red, eighteenth-century red morocco gilt in the style of Roger Payne, gilt edges, washed and browned, resulting in friable paper, damaged at end with loss of text; sold not subject to return

This edition was prepared by the scholar Pontico Virunio, who began teaching Greek in Reggio Emilia in December 1500. The printing partnership with Bombace and Bertocchi, using Manzi's press, had been established in late 1499 but did not last long.

LITERATURE

Edit16 14533; Botley, Learning Greek in Western Europe 1396-1529, Appendix 1:23

PROVENANCE

Thomas Dampier (1748-1812), bishop of Ely, inscription on flyleaf; Chatsworth bookplate (listed in volume II, p.217 of the 1879 Chatsworth library catalogue, under Guarini), but not found in the sales from Chatsworth in the early 1980s