Pindarus Thebanus, Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, Isthmia, Venice, Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, January 1513, French brown calf, mid-1540s

Pindarus Thebanus. Pindarou Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, Isthmia. Kallimachou hymnoi, oi euriskomenoi. Dionysiou periegesis Lykophronos Alexandra, to skoteinon poiema. Pindari Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, Isthmia, Callimachi hymni qui inueniuntur. Dionysius de situ orbis, Licophronis Alexandra, obscurum poema [Greek]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, January 1513

Editio princeps of Pindar's Odes. Aldo dedicated the work to his friend Andrea Navagero. According to Douglas Bauer, no more than 250 copies were printed, none on large paper, and a single copy on vellum for the dedicatee (“Problems in the Aldine Pindar” in Princeton University Library Chronicle 76, Spring 2015, pp. 418-446.)

8vo (154 x 95 mm). Greek type, 26 lines plus headline. collation: *⁸ 1-23⁸ 24⁴ (24-4 a blank): 196 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page, margins ruled in red, early marginalia. (A few stray spots, one or two closed marginal tears.)

binding: French brown calf (158 x 108 mm), mid-1540s, double blind rules with gilt fillets at corners, framing double gilt rules with alternating gilt six-pointed starts and flowers in corners, gilt hand holding bouquet of three fleur-de-lis at center, spine with raised bands in seven compartments, second and seventh with gilt-lettered morocco labels, others with alternating gilt rosettes and six-pointed star, gilt tower (possibly added later) in sixth, edges gilt and gauffered, blue endleaves. (Extremities rubbed, joints cracked with cords strengthened.)

provenance: Supralibros "tower in spine possibly an armorial stamp". acquisition: Purchased from E.K. Schreiber, New York, 1983. references: UCLA 108; Renouard 64/9; Edit16 37448; USTC 848778; Pindar., “[Odes].,” Grolier Club Exhibitions, accessed April 29, 2025, https://grolierclub.omeka.net/items/show/211.