Perotti, Cornucopiae, siue linguae Latinae commentarii, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, July 1499, eighteenth-century mottled vellum with Fortescue blind armorial stamp on front cover

Perotti, Niccolò. Cornucopiae, siue linguae Latinae commentarii, ubi quam plurima loca, quae in aliis ante impressis, incorrecta leguntur emendata sunt. Multa praeterea, quae in iis, etiam, quos ex archetypo excriptos habuimus, mendosa erant, emaculauimus. Graecum, quod ita inuersum, ac deprauatum erat, ut ne legi quidem posset, in suum locum & candorem restitutum est. Index copiosissimus, & nouo ordine, quo facillime quodcunq[ue] q[uae]ritur uocabulum, inueniri potest. … Eiusdem Sypontini libellus, quo Plinii epistola, ad Titum Vespasianu[m] corrigitur, cum graeco, quod in aliis non habetur. Cornelii Vitellii in eum ipsum libellum Sypontini annotationes. Hoc inueniendorum uocabulorum ordine, a nobis nuper inuento, no[n] licet cuiq[uam] in Dominio ill. .S. .V. Hoslinguae latinae commentarios impune imprimere. Add: Commentariolus in prohemium Historiae naturalis Plinii. Cornelius Vitellius: Epistola Parthenio Benacensi. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, July 1499

First Aldine edition of Perotti's (1429–1480) monumental and highly influential study of the language and literature of classical Rome, written in the form of a commentary on the epigrams of Martial. The work was long used as a Latin dictionary. The first edition, printed in Venice by Paganino Paganini in 1489, was edited by the author's nephew Pirro Perotti and by Lodovico Odasio, from whom there are two letters at the beginning of Aldo's edition.

In his long preface, Aldo tells the reader that he sees it as his duty to protect the treasures of literature from the ravages of time, and Perotti's "horn of plenty" became the primary source book for generations of Latin writers. Innovatively, the text is numbered by both page and line so that it can correspond exactly with the comprehensive alphabetical index—the first time this had been done and the de facto invention of a modern scholarly system of textual reference (see Ferdinand Geldner, Inkunabelkunde: eine Einführung in die Welt des frühesten Buchdrucks [Wiesbaden, 1978], p. 69).

Super-Chancery folio (317 x 217 mm). Roman type, 59 lines plus headline. collation: π–5π⁶ a–z¹⁰ A–H¹⁰ I¹²: 352 paginated leaves (I12 blank). Two- to five-line initial spaces with guide letters. (A few wormholes to first three and final quires, fore- edge margins of final quire stained, some scattered other soiling and staining, chiefly marginal.)

binding: Eighteenth-century marbled vellum over stiff boards (332 x 227 mm), front cover with central armorial Fortescue blind-stamp , spine in six compartments, second and third with, respectively, red and ivory morocco label, others with with gilt floral ornament, plain endpapers and edges. (Extremities just rubbed.)

provenance: Unidentified owner(s), contemporary marginalia — Hon. George Matthew Fortescue (1791–1877), armorial supralibros (see British Armorial Bindings database, Fortescue stamp 1: https://armorial.bibsoc.org.uk/stamps/IFOR004_s1.html); by descent to — John Bevill Fortescue (1850–1938), his only son; by descent to — John Grenville Fortescue (1896–1969), his son; by descent to — John Desmond Grenville Fortescue(1919–2017), his son; his sale, Christie's London, Printed Books from the Aldine Press, the Property of a Gentleman, 24 March 1971, lot 10 (£550). acquisition: Purchased at Christie's via Quaritch. references: UCLA 32; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 32; BMC V 561 (IB 24495); Goff P296; GW M31090; ISTC ip00296000; Renouard 19/2