![[Americana.]](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg2.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2006-09%252F22%252F7332891-4-1.JPG%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
![CALEPINO, AMBROGIO. 1435-1511. [Dictionarium.] Calepinus Ad librum. Mos est putidas.... Venice: Peter Liechtenstein, January 3, 1509.](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg2.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2012-08%252F09%252F8520323-124-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
![HEARN, LAFCADIO. 1850-1904. [Japanese Fairy Tales.] Philadelphia: Macrae-Smith, [But Tokyo: T. Hasegawa,] [c.1931].](/_next/image.jpg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg2.bonhams.com%2Fimage%3Fsrc%3DImages%252Flive%252F2025-11%252F07%252F25776056-1-1.jpg%26width%3D650&w=2400&q=75)
This auction has ended. View lot details
You may also be interested in
GASTRONOMY AND FOOD
The Property of a Catalan Collector and Former Chef
The Property of a Catalan Collector and Former Chef
Lot 156•
ATHENAEUS OF NAUCRATIS Deiphosophistae, in Greek, FIRST EDITION, Venice, Aldus Manutius and Andreas Torresanus, August 1514
4 December 2019, 11:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £8,812.50 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
ATHENAEUS OF NAUCRATIS
Deiphosophistae, in Greek, FIRST EDITION, edited by Marcus Musurus, Greek italic type, 45 lines and 2 headlines, capital spaces with guide-letters, dolphin and anchor device on first and last pages, last blank leaf of preliminaries lacking as often, occasional light soiling (mostly in margins and to first and last 2 or 3 leaves, these with some small chips or repairs), early ink marginalia in Greek and Latin (extensive at first) and some underscoring, eighteenth century panelled calf, sides with gilt rule and ornamental blind-tooled borders, gilt panelled spine with raised bands (neatly rebacked), inner gilt dentelles [Ahmanson-Murphy, 105; Renouard p.67; Vicaire 50], folio (313 x 205mm.), Venice, Aldus Manutius and Andreas Torresanus, August 1514
Footnotes
EDITIO PRINCEPS OF THE EARLIEST SURVIVING COOKERY TEXT: a valuable source of information on intellectual mores of the classical world, "magnifiquement exécutée" (Vicaire).
The Deipnosophistae ("Banquet of the learned") is the only known work by Athenaeus of Naucratis, a Greco-Egyptian writing in the early part of the 3rd century AD. In it a variety of scholars are invited to dine at a banquet held at the house of Larensius, a wealthy book-collector and patron of the arts. They debate at length a wide spectrum of topics, notably food, wine and cookery (the work is an important source of Greek, Persian, Roman and Sicilian recipes, many of which would have been lost), homosexuality (an unusually candid portrait for the time), sexual mores in general, health, music and philology. Aldus had begun to plan a Greek edition of the work soon after establishing his press, and he got as far as printing a one-page proof in his second Greek type, which was not used after 1499.
Provenance: Edmund Castle (1698-1750, churchman and academic), ownership inscription on title ("e libris Edmundi Castle"). Castle was admitted into Corpus Christi College in 1716, made fellow in 1722, and master in 1744. In the same year he was appointed rector of St. Paul's School and in 1749 he was made Dean of Hereford.