[Opera, in Greek, edited by Demetrius Chalcondylas.] by HOMER - 1488/89]

Florence: Demetrius Damilas [in the shop of the Printer of Vergilius (C 6061)] for Bernardo and Nero De' Nerli and Giovanni Acciaiuoli, 9 December 1488 [not before 13 January , 1488/89]. 2 volumes, Median folio (332 × 238 mm). Lately rebound to style using 18th-century brown morocco, spine decorated in blind with urn and lyre devices etc in compartments between five raised bands, sides panelled in blind with matching tools and floral devices within a latticework central panel, based on a Florentine binding executed in 1504 (illustrated in Tammaro de Marinis, La Legatura Artistica, Florence 1960). 439 leaves (of 440, lacking final blank), 39 lines, Greek letter, 2- and 10-line initial spaces. Ex-libris University of Lyon, with stamp Acad. Lugd. and release stamp dated 1843 on the first leaf; later in the libraries of Constantine Radoulesco and H. Bradley Martin (Sotheby's New York, 14 June 1990, lot 3355). Unrubricated, occasional marginalia in an attractive contemporary cursive hand; a good clean copy. Editio princeps of the writings attributed to Homer, including the Iliad and the Odyssey, two of the earliest, most important and influential works of European literature. "The Iliad and the Odyssey are the first perfect poetry of the western world. They spring fully grown, their predecessors lost, and the magic has persisted ever since. The legends of the siege of Troy and the return of Odysseus are the common heritage of all … The form, the action and the words have had incalculable influence on the form, action and words of poetry ever since; the composition of the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, and many others, has been determined by the Iliad and the Odyssey. Their popularity never diminishes" (PMM). The editor Demetrius Chalcondylas was professor of Greek at the Florentine Studio from 1475 until 1491. The type is that of Demetrius Damilas, a scribe who had previously been active in the printing of Greek books in Milan since 1476. It was based on the handwriting of Michael Apostolis, which was simpler and more distinct than Damilas's own elegant but elaborate hand. This monumental printing is the first large-scale printing in Greek, and also probably the first Greek book printed in Florence. (The rare Erotemata by Emanuel Chrysoloras, which survives in only two copies, was printed in Florence either in 1475 or c. 1488-94.) The text of Homer was not printed again in Greek until Aldus's octavo edition of 1504, which was based directly on Chalcondylas's text. The Batrachomyomachia ("Battle of the Frogs and Mice"), a pseudo-Homeric text, which is also included here with the Iliad, Odyssey and Homeric Hymns, had been earlier printed in an unsigned Greek-Latin edition printed perhaps at Brescia or Ferrara, which is known only from the unique copy in the John Rylands University Library, Manchester. Despite the lengthy and circumstantial colophon, bibliographers have had trouble in agreeing on the correct imprint and date. Robert Proctor (The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century, 1900, p. 66 sqq.) argued that the edition was actually printed in the shop of Bartolommeo di Libri, whose type was used to print the dedication to Piero de' Medici on the first page. BMC assigned the edition rather to the Nerli brothers, but Roberto Ridolfi (La stampa a Firenze nel secolo XV, 1958, p. 95 sqq.) has pointed out that the Nerli were well-born and wealthy Florentines whose role would have been a purely financial one. He has instead assigned the Homer to the anonymous Florentine shop, the Printer of Virgil (Copinger 6061, Goff V183), which flourished from 1488 to 1490 or so. Ridolfi supposes that only the first, dedication page was printed in di Libri's shop, more than a month after the completion of the edition proper, this page hitherto having been planned as a blank.