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HOMER Ομηρου Ιλιας μεταβληθεîσα παλαι εις κοινην γλωσσαν [Homērou Ilias metablētheisa palai eis koinēn glōssan], [colophon:] Venice, Stefano da Sabio... ad instantia di miser Damian di Santa Maria da Spici, May 1526 image 1
HOMER Ομηρου Ιλιας μεταβληθεîσα παλαι εις κοινην γλωσσαν [Homērou Ilias metablētheisa palai eis koinēn glōssan], [colophon:] Venice, Stefano da Sabio... ad instantia di miser Damian di Santa Maria da Spici, May 1526 image 2
CONTINENTAL BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS

The Property of a European Collector
Lot 127

HOMER
Ομηρου Ιλιας μεταβληθεîσα παλαι εις κοινην γλωσσαν [Homērou Ilias metablētheisa palai eis koinēn glōssan], [colophon:] Venice, Stefano da Sabio... ad instantia di miser Damian di Santa Maria da Spici, May 1526

4 December 2019, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £81,312.50 inc. premium

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HOMER

Ομηρου Ιλιας μεταβληθεîσα παλαι εις κοινην γλωσσαν [Homērou Ilias metablētheisa palai eis koinēn glōssan], 164 leaves (the last blank), text in double columns of 34 lines, text in Greek (except colophon), title printed in red with device in black, 138 fine woodcuts (3 full-page, a few repeats), decorative typographical initials, very slight browning to a few gatherings, occasional minor soiling, eighteenth century red morocco gilt, sides with elaborate roll tool borders, spine gilt in compartments with lettering and acorn tool, raised bands, inner gilt dentelles, g.e. [Adams H776; Brunet III 282-283, "rare et recherchée"; Dyson Perrins Italian 246], 4to (198 x 143mm.), [colophon:] Venice, Stefano da Sabio... ad instantia di miser Damian di Santa Maria da Spici, May 1526

Footnotes

AN EXCEPTIONAL COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE ILIAD IN MODERN GREEK, AND THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION.

The translation by Nikolaos Loukanis's was based on an earlier paraphrase by Konstantinos Hermoniakos, and is particularly significant for being the first printed translation of the Iliad into a modern vernacular language. It follows the Byzantine tradition of adding material from the Aeneid and elsewhere, including the story of the Fall of Troy and the wooden horse.

The woodcuts in this edition, the most lavishly illustrated of any vernacular Greek work yet printed, were fashioned in the Venetian style of the period, with the Greek gods and heroes depicted in sixteenth century costume. This rather scandalized nineteenth century scholars, "who found them crude and inappropriate for a poem such as the Iliad" (Harvard/Layton, Five Centuries of Books and Manuscripts in Modern Greek, 1987, 23).

Provenance: Louis César de la Baume le Blanc (1708-1780), duc de la Vallière, noted book collector, bookplate; his sale, 1784, lot 2365 (see Guillaume de Bure, Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de feu M. le duc de la Vallière, 1783); Maggs Brothers, "Acheté à Paris chez Maggs Bros le 26 octobre 1938", pencil note on loosely inserted bookseller's catalogue entry.

Additional information

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CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.

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