Hesychius, Dictionarium, Venice, Aldus, 1514, later vellum

Hesychius

Dictionarium. Venice: Aldus Manutius and Andrea Torresano, 1514

Super-Chancery folio (317 x 210mm.), text in Greek, woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final leaf (otherwise blank), a few early annotations, eighteenth-century Italian vellum, slightly warped

EDITIO PRINCEPS, edited by Marcus Musurus from an early fifteenth-century manuscript owned by the Mantuan mathematician Gian Giacomo Bardellone, the dedicatee of this edition. The lexicon of Hesychius is considered of particular importance; like many other lexicographers, he records passages from numerous works which are now lost, and he based his work on earlier dictionaries which have also not survived. In particular he recorded unusual vocabulary and dialects which are not known from any other source.

Please note that this lot has already been granted an export licence by the Italian authorities.

LITERATURE:

Aldo Manuzio tipografo 124; Edit16 23059; Renouard 1514/3; UCLA 122

PROVENANCE:

General Theological Seminary, New York, stamps on title-page and final leaf (in the sale of their books, Christie's, New York, 1 October 1980, lot 74 is a copy of this edition, but bound in half red morocco)