Poetae Graeci Principes … — Geneva 1566

Poetae Graeci principes heroici carminis, & alii nonnulli. — Anno M. D. LXVI Excudebat Henricus Stephanus, illustris viri Huldrichi Fuggeri typographus. 

(Geneva, Henri Estienne, 1566)

Folio (362 x 221 mm).

Vol. I: *⁶ **⁴ A-D⁸ E⁴ a-z⁸ aa-bb⁸ cc⁶ (cc6 blank) Aa¹⁰ (title-leaf to the Odyssee without signature) Bb-Yy⁸ Zz⁶ Zzz³ (without blank Zzz4); vol. II: a-g⁴ AA-ZZ⁶ AAA-RRR⁶ SSS, TTT⁴ (TTT4 blank): 20, LXXII, 781 pp.; LVII, (i. e. LVI), 489 pp.

Oval stamp and deleted ownership entry on title. Wormhole in lower blank margin. Faint watermargin in the upper blank margin of a few quires. Modern olive green morocco, spine sunned; red morocco label. – Adams P-1699.

Schreiber 160: „Henri Estienne’s monumental collection of the Greek poets, sumptuously printed in the largest sizes of the ‚grec du roi‘ (from the duplicate set brought to Geneva by Robert Estienne). This is unquestionably Henri Estienne’s typographical masterpiece … The first part is devoted to the Homeric poems; by collating 18 previous printed editions and a vetustissimum exemplar. Henri Estienne succeeded in establishing a critical text of Homer which remained standard until the 19th century … The second part contains improved texts of Hesiod, Orpheus (i. e. the Orphica), Callimachus, Theocritus, Bion, Moschus, Aratus, Nicander, Dionysius Periegetes, Coluthus, Triphiodorus, Musaeus, Theognis, Phocylides, The Golden Sayings of Pythagoras; also included is the editio princeps of the fragments of several early Greek poets: e. g. Solon, Tyrtaeus, Mimnernus. 

In this work Henri Estienne has employed his personal diacritical notations, which he revised for this volume and for his edition of the Anthology. At the end of the first part he has added 57 pages of Annotationes.“