Omērou Ilias = Homeri Ilias.

Accession number: 
PML 199254-55
Author: 
Homer.
Published: 
[Venice] : [Aldo Manuzio], [1504]
Credit: 
Purchased on the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation Book Purchase Fund in honor of the Morgan's Centennial.
Description: 
2 volumes (278; 250 leaves) ; 17 cm (8vo)
Notes: 

Second edition of Homer's works, and the first Aldine edition, printed in 1504. The Aldine version was based on the first edition printed in Florence in 1488/9.
Printed on vellum and lacking the seven preliminary quires on Homer's life by Herodotus and Plutarch. As in all other recorded copies on vellum, a1-a2r are blank rather than printed with title and preface.
Title proper romanized from Greek.
Publication date from Evans and Renouard.
Both volumes includes dedicatory epistle from Aldo Manuzio to Girolamo Aleandro, with the second dated Oct. 31, 1504 ("secundo Cale[n]das Nouem. MDIIII") in Venice .
Consistent with all recorded copies on vellum, the second volume lacks the printed title: Odysseia. Batrachomyomachia. Hymnoi. 32 = Vlyssea. Batrachomyomachia. Hymni. xxxii."
Greek types, 30 lines plus headline.
Signatures: vol. 1: A-Z⁸ AA-LL⁸ MM⁶: 278 leaves (MM6 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page, 2- and 6-line initial spaces with guide letters. vol. 2: 1-7⁸ (-1-7) a-z⁸ A-G⁸ H¹⁰: 250 (of 306) leaves.
Woodcuts: Aldine anchor-and-dolphin device on t.p. of volume I.
Homeric text printed in Greek type; spaces left for capitals, with guide letters; dedication in small italic type.

Binding: 
Odyssey: contemporary Roman or Venetian brown goatskin over grooved wooden boards (160 x 02 mm) in alla greca style, covers tooled in blind, border formed by broad and narrow fillets, leaf tool at inner corners, central floral tool within an ellipsoid formed by two blind fillets containing a leaf tool at top and bottom, two braided double-thong leather clasps catching on upper cover, vellum endleaves, plain edges. (Rebacked preserving most of original spine, corners restored.) Iliad: modern brown goatskin binding (159 x 97 mm) by Riviere in imitation of the preceding, vellum endleaves, plain edges. Housed in uniform brown morocco Solander boxes gilt, by Riviere.
Variant Title: 

Homeri Ilias

Provenance: 
Iliad: Roderick T. Terry (1849-1933); AAA-Anderson Galleries, New York, 7-8 November 1934, lot 122; purchased by unidentified owner ($600). Odyssey: Giovanni Matteo Giberti (1495-1543), Bishop of Verona, sponsor of the Greek press run by Stefano dei Nicolini da Sabbio, inscription; Francesco Berni (1498?-1535), name in Greek inscribed on title; Simon Berchius, presentation inscription to Angelo (Agnolo) Monosini (1568-1626); unidentified owner, seventeenth-/eighteenth-century inscription, “Felice Vinona,” on flyleaf; Bibliothèque de Carpentras, Aix-en-Provence (?); Antoine-Augustin Renouard (1765-1853); George John Warren, 5th Baron Vernon (1803-1866); Robert Stayner Holford (1808-1892), note of Holford on lower pastedown “From Renouard's Collection”; by descent to; Lt. Col. Sir George Lindsay Holford (1860-1926); Sotheby's London, 5-9 December 1927, lot 369; purchased by; Bernard Quaritch, London (£150); Bernard Quaritch, Catalogue ... of the Aldine Press (London, 1929), p. 23. Iliad and Odyssey united: The Papal Countess Estelle Doheny (1875-1958); by bequest to; St. John's Seminary, Camarillo (Roman Catholic seminary); Christie Manson & Woods International Inc., The Estelle Doheny collection from the Edward Laurence Doheny Memorial Library, St. John's Seminary, Camarillo, California, sold on behalf of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Christie's New York, 17-18 October 1988, lot 1020 ($52,800). acquisition: Purchased at the Doheny-St. John's Seminary sale via Martin Breslauer Inc.; T. Kimball Brooker (b. 1939), his sale: Bibliotheca Brookeriana: A Renaissance Library. The Aldine Collection D-M, Sotheby's, New York, 18 October 2024, lot 772.
Catalog Link: 
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Classification: 
Binding Collection
Department: 
Printed Books