Alexandra, sive Cassandra … Basel 1546

Alexandra, sive Cassandra: poema quidem obscura etiam doctis appelatum, sed ita … Isacii Tzetzis … commentarijs … Adiectus quoque est Ioannis Tzetzae variarum historiarum liber … & Pauli Lacisii Veronensis ad verbum Latine conversus, nec unquam antea edita. — Basileae. (Colophon:) Basileae, Ex officina Ioannis Oporini, anno salutis humanae M. D. XLVI. Mense Martio.

Basel, Oporinus, March 1546

First separate edition of Lycophron’s Cassandra and editio princeps of Isaac Tetzes commentary and of Ioannis Tzetzes‘  variarum historiam liber.

Folio (280 x 190 mm). α, β⁴ A-X⁴ Y⁶; *¹ (of 4) Aa-ZZ⁴ Aaa-Lll⁴ (lacking *2-4 with Gerbelius‘ letter to Oporinus, and blank Lll4): (8) leaves, 180 p.; (1) leaf, 260 p., (1) leaf.

Ample margins. Watermargin in second part, pages 43-71. Wormtrack in outer blank margin of number of leaves in second part.

Contemporary Spanish limp vellum, manuscript title on spine. Upper hinge broken, text block nearly loosening from its binding.

β 2 and β3 pasted together with β1. It seems that an early owner hated the protestants: with a strip of paper he pasted over the names of Johannes Oporinus and Nicolaus Gerbel on the title-page and the colophon of the second part, he omitted the letter of Gerbelius to Oporinus, and in the first part he pasted together β1-3 with Gerbelius‘ castigationes. I’ve never seen anything like this: gluing together unwanted pages – this would fit into Roger Stoddard’s collection ‚Marks in Books‘.

Provenance: Cassandra with contemporary marginal annotations in Greek. Ex-libris on paste-down: M. A. Principis Burghesii libri, i. e. a copy of the Borghese library, the ex-libris is of Marcantonio Borghese (1814–1886). This important  library was sold at the end of the 19th cenury. 

Hieronymus, Griech. Geist … no. 183; Hoffmann II 568; VD16 L 7723. Dibdin 209: „This work is now become ectremely scarce, and held in great request“ – written  in 1827.

From Simon Hornblower, The dark poem that everyone hates: Lykophron’s Alexandra: „My subject is a long post-classical Greek poem, the Alexandra, which must win some kind of prize for unpopularity among modern critics of ancient literature. But unlike many of my academic colleagues, I think it a wonderful and daring construction and a minor experimental masterpiece, unique in ancient writing, and of enormous historical importance not only for the Greek attitude to the conquering Roman superpower but for Hellenistic and Roman history more generally.“