102 Editiones principes GERMANY, ITALY, FRANCE. [CENT. XV f The present chapter may fitly close with a chronological conspectus of the editiones principes of the Greek and Latin Classics. The list is mainly confined to the principal classical authors, with the addition of the two earliest texts of the Greek Testament (1516-7) and of the Latin Fathers (1465), but to the exclusion of translations, grammars, and minor bibliographical curiosities. Not unfrequently an editio princeps comes into the world without any note of time or place, and without the name of any editor or printer, and the determination of these points is often a matter of considerable difficulty. Possibly the unique Batrachomyomachia in the Rylands Library, Manchester (ascribed by Proctor to Ferrandus of Brescia, c. 1474), and the rare copies of Virgil (Mentelin, Strassburg, c. 1469), Juvenal (Ulrich Hahn, Rome, c. 1470), and Martial (Rome, c. 1471), are earlier than those entered in the list; and it is uncertain whether the editio princeps of Curtius (c. 1471) is that of G. Laver, Rome, or Vindelin de Spira, Venice. In the list, approximate dates are (as here) distinguished by the usual abbreviation for circiter; and conjectural names of printers, or of places of publication, are enclosed within parentheses. For all these details the best bibliographical works have been consulted1. The name of the 'editor' has been added, wherever it can be inferred either from the colophon or title-page, or from the preface or letter of dedication. It will be seen how large a part of the editorial work was done, in the case of Latin authors, by Giovanni Andrea de' Bussi, bishop of Aleria, and, in the case of Greek, by Janus Lascaris, and Aldus Manutius (with or without the aid of Musurus). Besides frequently indicating the names of the editors, the Aldine prefaces are full of varied interest. Thus Aldus laments that his work as a printer is interrupted by wars abroad and by strikes at home", and by difficulties in procuring trustworthy MSS. But he exults in the fact that Greek is being studied, not in Italy alone, but also in France and Hungary and Britain and Spain3. A Greek scholar at Milan begins the editio princeps of the great lexicon of Suïdas with an adroit advertisement in the form of a lively dialogue between the bookseller and the student, who finally produces three gold pieces and buys the book. 1 Dibdin's Introduction, ed. 4 (London, 1827); Panzer, Annales Typographici, ad ann. 1536, 11 vols. (Nürnberg, 1793-1803); Hain, Repertorium Bibliographicum, ad ann. 1500, 2 vols. in 2 parts each (Stuttgart, 1826–38; now in course of reprinting), with Indices and Register (Leipzig, 1891), Copinger's Supplement, vols. (London, 1898), and Reichling's Appendices (Munich, 1905-); R. Proctor, Index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum to 1500, 2 vols. (London, 1898), Germany, in 1501-20 (1903), and The Printing of Greek in the xvth cent. (Bibliographica, Dec. 1900); Renouard, Annales des Imprimeries des Aldes, 3 vols. ed. 3 (Paris, 1834); Didot, Alde Manuce (Paris, 1875); Botfield, Praefationes et Epp. (London, 1861); R. C. Christie, Chronology of the Early Aldines (1894), in Selected Essays (London, 1902), 223-246; and H. Guppy, The John Rylands Library (Manchester, 1906), 49-78. 2 Plato, 1513. Aristotle, i 2, and iv 1495–8. 3 Prudentius, 1502 N. S. 5 Aristotle, i 2 (init.); Steph. Byz. |