Opera […] Florence 1550

Τὰ ευ͑ρισκομένα ἅπαντα. — Florence, Laurentius Torrentinus, 1550.

Editio princeps. Folio. 42 p., 1 leaf, 347 (i. e. 359) p. Printed in Greek. Title with erased ownership entry; faint, very faint, marginal foxing to a few leaves only. 19th century half calf, rubbed along joints and edges. A clean copy with ample margins.

BL/STC p. 186; Adams C 2104; Hoffmann I, 455; Dibdin p. 187 (calls the ducal printer Torrentino „an admirable artist“); Brunet II,93 („Bien executée et peu commune“). See also D., Moreni, Annali della Tipografia Fiorentina di Lorenzo Torrentino, Florence 1811, p.54-56, it ends with: „Tra l’edizioni le più rare del Torrentino questa è una delle rarissime“ – this was writen in 1811.

The architectural title-border shows arms and devices of Cosimo de ‘Medici, the dedicatee of this edition.

First edition of the Greek text. The editor is Piero Vettori, the source a manuscript of the Bibliotheca Medicea, no details about this manuscript are given.The beautiful type used here – Cervini no. 1 , „one of the most elegant sixteenth-century Greek types produced in Italy“ (E. Layton)- was designed by Nikolaos Sophianos for Cardinal Marcello Cervini, friend of our editor Piero Vettori – see E. Layton, The sixteenth century Greek book in Italy, Venice 1994, p. 299f. Cervini, at that time protector of the Bibliothecæ Apostolicæ Vaticanae, had planned to print the most valuable Greek manuscripts of the Vatican collections. For Nikolaus Sophianos („one of the most interesting and accomplished figures among the Greeks residing in Italy during the first half of the 16th c.“ Layton) see Layton p. 460-472 and especially for the type: Id., The history of a sixteenth-century Greek type revised, in: The Historical Review, vol. I (2004), p. 35ff.

Together with the first Latin edition:

Clemens Alexandrinus

Omnia quae quidem extant opera, nunc primum e tenebris eruta Latinitateque donata, Gentiano Herveto Aurelio interprete. — Florence, Laurentius Torrentinus, 1551.

Folio (333 x 215 mm). 47, 113 pp., 1 blank leaf, 277 pp., (1) p., (26) ff. Small wormtrack in inner gutter of leaves C5-D5, a few waterspots on very upper margin. Lower margin of the title-page cut off. Contemporary vellum. – Adams C 2105.