Opera. Edited by Alexander Sartius. Venice: Aldus Manutius, July 1498.
Folio (320 x 218 mm). Collation: a-p⁸ q-r¹⁰ s-t⁸ A-I⁸ K⁴ L-P⁸ Q-R¹⁰ S⁸ T¹⁰ V⁶ X-Y¹⁰ Z⁸ &¹⁰ aa¹⁰ "iterum"aa⁸ "iterum"bb⁸ bb-hh⁸ ii⁶ kk¹⁰ (a1r title, a1v address by Aldus to Marino Sanuto, a2r index, a3r text, K4-L1r blank, X10v blank, kk8v colophon, kk9r register, kk10r "Monodia" on the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, kk10v blank). 452 leaves. 38 lines and headline. Type: 2:114R, 7:114Gk. 2- to 9-line initial spaces with guide-letters. Contemporary blind-tooled half pigskin and wooden boards, two brass clasps, fore edge lettered in ink "Angelius Politianus." Some minor staining to sides, lower right corner with minor chipping, first and last gatherings with some light mostly marginal worming.
Provenance: Gervais Sopher (d. 1556) held the office of "fiscal of the bishop" in Strassburg and prosecuted ecclesiastical offenses, including 24 charges of heresy against Matthaeus Zell, an early Lutheran in Strassburg, (his ownership and purchase information dated 1512 on front paste-down and early marginalia).

FIRST EDITION of the collected works of Politianus, one of the foremost classical scholars and poets of the Florentine Renaissance, whose "conscious adoption of a new standard of accuracy and precision" lifted him above previous generations of Classical scholarship (Grafton Defenders of the Text p 72). This edition of his Opera is perhaps the first attempt of a publication of collected works of a modern author, appropriately printed by one of the greatest Renaissance printers. The square Hebrew type on H8r is the FIRST USE OF HEBREW TYPE AT VENICE. Renouard considered this "one of the most beautiful" productions of the Aldine press. BMC V, 559; BSB-Ink P-663; Goff P-886; GW M34727; HC *13218; HC *13218; Renouard I,17:4.