Homeri poetarum omnium principis Ilias / Andrea Diuo Iustinopolita[n]o interprete, ad verbu[m] translata ; Herodoti Halicarnassei libellus, Homeri vita[m] fidelissime continens, Conrado Heresbachio interprete ; cum indice copiosissimo.

Accession number: 
PML 199344.1
Author: 
Homer.
Published: 
Venetiis : apud D. Iacob à Burgofrancho, MDXXXVII [1537]
Credit: 
Purchased on the T. Kimball Brooker Foundation Book Purchase Fund in honor of the Morgan's Centennial.
Description: 
[22], 3-277, [3] leaves ; 17 cm (8vo)
Notes: 

First edition of Andrea Divo's Latin prose translation of Homer's Iliad, designed to be used with the Greek text of the Aldine Homer, to whose pages it corresponded; accompanied by an account of the life of Homer (formerly attributed to Herodotus), translated by Conrad Heresbach.
In verse.
Printer from colophon.
Leaves [18]-[21] of first sequence contain Andrea Divo's dedicatory epistle, addressed to Pietro Paolo Vergerio, bishop of Justinopolis; and his note to students of Greek literature.
Burgofranco's note on leaves [21]-[22] of first sequence makes reference to Aldus' Latin editions of Homer.
Roman and italic types, 30 lines plus headline.
Signatures: A*⁸ **⁸ a-z⁸ aa-mm⁸: 296 leaves.
Title within allegorical woodcut border featuring figures of the goddesses Athena on the left, and Melissa, holding a globe filled with bees , on the right, with Burgofranco's initials in a cartouche supported by cherubs below; Burgofranco's device on leaf [1] at end (his initials I.A.F.B. on a shield, surmounted by a sword bearing the additional initial "D", supported by two women: Faith, on the left, holding a chalice, and Hope, on the right, holding an anchor); ornamental zoomorphic initials.
Includes index.

Binding: 
Contemporary brown Italian (probably Venetian) morocco (167 x 119 mm), bound as a gift from the translator, Andrea Divo, to the dedicatee, Pietro Paolo Vergerio; with frame formed by 2 gilt fillets flanked by multiple blind fillets, inner rectangle with exedrae and gilt leaf at outer angle, gilt floral cornerpieces, in centre of upper cover gilt roundel containing "AND.DIVI.MV/NVS" (i.e. Gift of Andrea Divo) and lettered "HOMERVS" above, centre of lower cover the letters "P.P" (i.e. Pier Paolo) and Vergerio's family insignia: a gilt shield enclosing a tree, surmounted by a painted bishop's mitre; traces of 4 pairs of fabric ties, spine with 3 full and 4 half bands, compartments decorated with blind rolls, edges gilt and gauffered to a knotwork pattern. The armorial design has been rubbed away. In 1544 Vergerio was denounced to the Inquisition for Protestant sympathies, and in 1549 he was convicted of heresy, and never set foot again in Italy. The erasure of his armorial on the binding may have been the deliberate removal of the insignia of an acknowledged heretic.
Variant Title: 

Homeri poetarvm omnivm principis Ilias

Provenance: 
Andrea Divo, the translator, presentation lettering on covers to the dedicatee, Pier Paolo Vergerio (1498-1565), bishop of Capodistria (1536-1549), on upper cover "And. Divi. Munus" (Gift of Andrea Divo), and on lower cover the initials "P.P." (Pier Paolo) with a bishops' mitre and his family blason of "la verza" (a cabbage, a "simbolo parlante" of the surname Verzier or Verziero, i.e. Vergerio); seventeenth-century inscription “Petri Leonardi de Rio, Archip(re)tri San. Syri [--]" on lower pastedown; sale, Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 16 January 2008, lot 85; Librairie Thomas-Scheler, Livres précieux du XVe au XIXe siècle: XXIVe Biennale des Antiquaires, Paris - Grand Palais (Paris 2008), item 36. acquisition: Purchased in 2011 from Librairie Thomas-Scheler, Paris; purchased by: T. Kimball Brooker, his sale: Sotheby's (London), Bibliotheca Brookeriana V, 10 Dec. 2024, lot 1117.
Classification: 
Department: