Περὶ σχεδῶν … — Paris 1545

[sold]

Περὶ σχεδῶν. Ex Bibliotheca Regia. — Lutetiae, Ex officina Roberti Stephani typographi Regii. M.D.XLV. [Paris, Robert Estienne, 31 Dec. 1545].

Editio princeps

4to (228 x 152 mm). a-z, A-I⁴ K⁶: 216 pp., (26) ff. Basilisc device on title. 

The Latin title Manuelis Moschopuli de ratione examinandae orationis libellus below the Greek title has been deleted on the title-page. 

18th-century sprinkled calf, spine gilt, red morocco label.

Provenance: J. Sedgwick; Dutens, inscriptions on title-page; Earls of Macclesfield, dry stamp on title and in the blank margin of the following two leaves. A very few underlinings and marginal notes in brown ink. I think the notes come from Louis Dutens (1730-1812), editor of the Latin Works of Leibniz, author of Recherches sur l’origine des découvertes attribuées aux modernes, Du miroir ardent d’Archimede, a few works on numismatics and some more. – Renouard 64, no. 11; Hoffmann II 602; Adams M-1838.

¶ „Editio princeps of an important grammatical text by the Byzantine scholar Manuel Moschopulus (fl. Constantinopel, ca. 1300), who had been a student of Maximus Planudes. This grammar formed the basis of the later works of such promoters of Hellenism as Chrysoloras, Theodore Gaza, Constantine Lascaris.

Typographical the book is important as only the second text printed entirely in the beautiful French Royal Greek types (‚grecs du roi‘) cut by Claude Garamond after the script of the Cretan Angelo Vergecio, a well-known calligrapher in the employ of King François I. These cursive Greek types were inaugurated the previous year with Estienne’s edition of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, and are now universally acknowledged as the finest Greek types ever cut.“ (Fred Schreiber, his catalogue 37, no. 98)