Descripción
Text in Greek type 4:79, (first part of title, register, and colophon in roman 10:82.) Bound in a contemporary Greek-style binding (see below). A tall copy, contents in very good condition with scattered ink stains (mostly light) and minor marks, dampstain at head of some gatherings and in a few gutters; half of leaf L2 supplied from another copy, text-block slightly rounded at corners, minor marginal worm in a few gatherings, not affecting the text. Woodcut Aldine device on title and final leaf. With scattered contemporary annotations, additions, and corrections, longer ones on C6, E6v, E8r, I8v, GG4r, and HH3r (those on C6 with added verses of Theocritus(?) concerning Aphrodite ("he kupris ou pandemos"). This copy is remarkable for its Greek-style ("alla greca", "à la grecque") binding, very worn, board edges damaged, slight losses at head and tail of spine; lacking straps (but remnants preserved inside both boards) and clasps, one clasp peg preserved. Both end-bands are intact. The Greek-Style Binding: "The book was undoubtedly bound by a Greek bookbinder in the genuine Greek style, possibly coming from Crete or trained in the tradition of Cretan bookbinding, who was probably working in the Veneto, but not necessarily Venice (i.e. perhaps Padua, as the university there would have provided a good market for such bindings), and that the book was certainly tooled in Italy (making the supposition that the binder was working in the Veneto more likely). The worn condition of the book makes it very difficult to get an accurate impression of the book as it looked when new, but it is not finished with the precision of the best work in Venice of the time, though the cutting of the grooves in the edges of the boards and working of the endbands are both very nicely executed. It is always possible, therefore, that the book was bound up the point of being sewn, in boards and with endbands, by a very competent Greek binder (it was work that fell outside the experience of Italian binders at the time), and that the covering and decoration was done afterwards, possibly by another, not necessarily Greek, binder. The tools have not been identified, but there are some structural features that might yet lead to a more precise provenance."(Nicholas Pickwoad) "From archival data cited by De Marinis (1960 vol. 1 pp. 31ff.; vol. 2 p. 45) it is clear that in Italy the term 'alla greca' was in use by the second half of the fifteenth century: documents dating from 1455 to 1499 clearly distinguish bindings with 'une serratura greca', 'libri ala grechessa' and 'legate alla greca' from those of the kind 'ligatum more latino'. A bill made out for four bindings of either type, 'doy in grecho e doy non grechi' proves that the same workshop could handle either technique; the specification that 'sei volumi greci [should be bound] ala grecha' attests the early humanists' traditional preference to have classical Greek texts bound accordingly. In his chapter on 'alla greca' bindings De Marinis (1960 vol. 3, pp. 36-49) lists 225 examples from Italy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (c.15 per cent and 85 per cent respectively); Venice and Rome are the most frequent places of origin. The 'alla greca' vogue had equally caught on in France, where the royal libraries of Francis I and Henri II at Fontainebleau assembled a rich collection of no less than 600 Greek works bound 'alla greca', now in BNF (A. Hobson 1989 pp. 172-212). Humanist collectors far and wide followed the fashion: members of the Fugger family in Augsburg had their Greek books bound in Paris, Venice and also in Germany, and Cardinal Granvelle, even if he knew no Greek, made sure that the Greek texts received an appropriate binding (probably from Italy; see Piquard 1942; 1951)."(Szirmai, The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding) "The fashion for Greek-style bindings amongst the wealthier humanist scholars and book collectors of Western Europe appeared first in Italy in the second half of the fifte. N° de ref. del artículo 4503
Contactar al vendedor
Denunciar este artículo
