Editio princeps of the Argonautica in Lascaris’s types, bound for Renouard

Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica.

€ 95,000.00

Editio princeps of the principal epic of the Alexandrian period, produced at Florence by the foremost Greek press before Aldus and edited by Janus Lascaris.

Based on the tenth century manuscript discovered by Giovanni Aurispa (Cod. Laurentianus XXXII 9), Lascaris’s edition established the Hellenistic epic for Renaissance readers and provided the standard basis for Roman poets’ reception in print. The edition was typographically important: Lascaris devised an epigraphic, all capitals Greek for the text and, for the first time here, a smaller cursive fount for the scholia. The striking mise en page of capitals framed by minuscule commentary makes this one of the visually most compelling Greek books of the fifteenth century. The press of Lorenzo di Alopa, founded to print Greek texts, here produced what contemporary bibliographers called Lascaris’s finest editorial achievement, and one of the best practical demonstrations of early Greek typefounding.

The present copy is further distinguished by a Bozérian jeune binding commissioned by the great French bibliographer, bookseller and collector (and sometime revolutionary) Antoine Augustin Renouard (see Bogeng I, 159-162), exhibiting the Bozérians’ ‘mille points’ spine finishing and a refined neo classical palette. The volume was later owned by the British bibliographer Beriah Botfield, whose arms and device adorn the covers and doublures.

A handsome, well margined example of a landmark in both scholarship and printing, and a fine association to two of the nineteenth century’s great bibliophiles.