Lexicon graecum. Milan: Johannes Bissolus and Benedictus Mangius, for Demetrius Chalcondylas, November 15, 1499.
2 volumes in one. Folio (340 x 230 mm). 516 leaves: [alpha]-[omega]⁸ 3[alpha]-3[lambda]⁸ [Alpha]-2[Delta]⁸ 2[Epsilon]-2[Zeta]⁶. Primarily Greek type. Woodcut printer's device at colophon. Blindstamped crushed black morocco by Riviere, a.e.g. Foliated in pencil throughout, final 3 gatherings with waterstain into text, second gathering with small waterstain at fore-edge, first leaf lightly soiled, very occasional light finger-soiling, rubbed.
Provenance: Greek marginalia (slightly trimmed); with Quaritch (pencil notes on endpapers of E.M. Dring).

EDITIO PRINCEPS, a crisp and attractive copy of one of the most important literary monuments from the Byzantine period (Krumbacher pp 562-570), and the largest incunable in Greek.
The Suda (known under the personal name of "Suidas") was compiled in the 10th century and based on Hesychius' 5th-century lexicon. Almost more of an encyclopedia than a dictionary, the text was further expanded by Demetrius Chalcondylas [1423-1501]. A dialogue on fol. 1 between the bookseller and a student seeks therefore to justify the price of three ducats—probably a precautionary move by Chalcondylas triggered by the notorious failure of his 1493 Isocrates.
The Suda is the only work printed at Milan by Bissolus and Mangius. This copy contains the first state of sheet ZZ1.8, with the four misprints in Salandus' Latin verses on ZZ8r uncorrected, and two contracted words on the same page, omitted by the compositor, stamped with type in the margin. BMC VI 792; Goff S829; HC *15135.