Joannes Philoponus, Eis to peri geneseos, kai phthoras, Venice, Heirs of Aldo & Torresano, 1527, rough brown calf over pasteboards, ca. 1540 by the Compass Binder of Lyon, Macclesfield copy

Joannes Philoponus. In libros de generatione et interitu. Alexander Aphrodisiensis In meteorologica. Idem De mixtione

[Greek and Latin]. Venice: Heirs of Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, September 1527

The Macclesfield copy. The Aristotelian commentaries of late antiquity, particularly those of Alexander of Aphrodisias and Joannes Philoponus, were much studied in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and it was part of the Aldine "plan" to print these as well as the Aristotelian corpus itself. Aldo began with the commentary on Ammonius in 1503, and started again with Torresano in 1513 with Alexander's commentary on part of the Organon. In 1527 two volumes were produced, the present work and Simplicius De anima.

Folio (313 x 209 mm). Greek and Roman type, 54 lines plus headline. collation: π² A-H⁸ I⁶ K-S⁸ T⁶: 150 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso, mathematical diagrams. (Worming to outer margin of T2-6, short closed tear to lower margin of R8, some dampstaining, browning.)

binding: Reverse brown calf (319 x 220 mm), ca. 1540, by the Compass Binder of Lyon, covers decorated in blind, with an outer panel of a diapered roll and fillets enclosing a similar central panel enclosing a pattern of arabesques, half-moon corner decorations, edges gilt. (Worn and rubbed, with exposure at corners and raised bands, some damage to headband, lacking the ties.)

provenance: Unidentified owner, inscription on rear pastedown, perhaps a bookseller's price or the cost of the binding — Macclesfield, family library (Shirburn Castle), armorial bookplate to pastedown (South library), armorial pressure stamp on first three leaves; sale, Sotheby's London, 14 April 2005, lot 1103. acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby's via Robin Halwas. references: UCLA 248; Renouard 104/7; Edit16 37733; USTC 836407