Origenes, Homiliae in Vetus Testamentum, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, February 1503, twelfth-century (?) vellum

Origenes. Quae hoc in libro continentur. Origenis in Genesim homiliae 16. Eiusdem in Exodum homiliae 13. Eiusdem in Leuiticum homiliae 16. Eiusdem in Numeros homiliae 28. Eiusdem in Iesum Naue homiliae 26. Eiusdem in Librum Iudicum homiliae 8. Diuo Hieronymo interprete. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, February 1503

First and only edition of Origenes’s Homilies, printed by Aldo Manuzio.

Celebrated by Henri de Lubac as a pioneer of modern biblical interpretation, Origen profoundly shaped Erasmus’s thinking on questions such as free will. His Homilies on the Pentateuch and the Book of Judges were translated by Rufinus of Aquileia. Although Aldo attributed the translation to St. Jerome, modern scholarship has corrected this misidentification.

Folio (310 x 210). Roman type, 55 lines plus headline, printed in two columns. collation: π⁶ A-Y⁸ Z⁶: 188 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on final leaf, contemporary marginalia. (Title soiled, dampstaining to lower margin, scattered foxing, corner of last leaf replaced, worming to last leaf costing a few letters.)

binding: Early, possible twelfth-century, vellum manuscript palimpsest over pasteboards (308 x 210 mm), edges flush with boards. (Splits to vellum along spine, endleaves removed, fifteenth-century manuscript used as binding reinforcement.)

provenance: Contemporary marginalia. acquisition: Purchased from Hamill & Barker, Chicago, 1969. references: UCLA 72; Renouard 44/11; Edit16 55859; USTC 845442