Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, Venice, Aldus, 1514, later marbled carta rustica

ATHENAEUS

Δειπνοσοφισται [edited by Marcus Musurus]. (Venice): Aldus (and Andrea Torresano, August 1514)

folio (328 x 217mm.), text in Greek, woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final leaf (otherwise blank), with blank leaf B10, early annotations in Latin and Greek, later marbled paper over carta rustica, manuscript title label on spine, title repaired in gutter and with erased inscription, A10 reattached, final quire repaired in gutter, slight staining towards end, new endpapers

EDITIO PRINCEPS. Athenaeus's compilation of the banquet conversations of learned men, written in about 200AD, contains much information relating to food, wine and food etiquette, along with philosophy, literature and medicine; many sections were extracted from other texts which have not survived so it is an important source for many lost works.

LITERATURE:

Edit16 3340; Renouard 1514/4; UCLA 123

PROVENANCE:

"Bern. Baldi", early inscription at head of printer's device, quite likely to be the Italian scholar Bernardino Baldi of Urbino (1553-1617)