Plato, Opera, Venice, Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, January 1513, Venetian alla greca binding likely by the Fugger Binder, 1540s

Plato. Apanta ta tou Platonos. Omnia Platonis opera [Greek]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, January 1513

Editio princeps of Plato, one of Aldo's greatest Greek-language first editions, in a contemporary alla greca binding. Aldo's dedication to this edition is one of the most elaborate that he ever wrote. Addressed to Giovanni de Medici, newly elected Pope Leo X, it contains a tribute to his father Lorenzo de' Medici's earlier patronage of Marsilio Ficino’s Latin translation. Aldo sets out a vision for classical studies and hopes that the Pope will found a Greek academy modeled on Plato's, where Musurus, who edited this edition from manuscripts that Janus Lascaris brought to Venice from the monasteries on Mount Athos, will teach; such a college was set up by Leo shortly afterwards, but in Rome and with its own press, run by Aldo's rival in Greek printing, Zacharias Callierges. In the same preface Aldo wrote of the labors involved in the production of this book, which he had first promised as early as 1497: "Non enim unius diei labor hic noster, sed multorum annorum, atque interim nec mora, nec requies" (For this is not our labor of one day, but of many years, and in the meantime there is neither delay nor rest). Martin Lowry has described Aldo's dedicatory essay as "one of the most comprehensive statements of the humanist position to be found outside Erasmus" (The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice [1979], p. 205). Musurus' fine elegaic poem to the Pope and to Plato "has been considered one of the finest written since the decline of classical civilisation" (Lowry, loc. cit.).

This edition of Plato was just one of many Greek editiones principes printed by Aldo, but in influence—considered in conjunction with Marsilio Ficino's Latin translation (Florence: Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, [1484-85]; Goff P771)—it may have eclipsed even his Aristotle of 1495–1498 (Goff A959). As Alfred North Whitehead observed in Process and Reality, "The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writings an inexhaustible mine of suggestion."

Two parts in one volume, folio (307 x 200 mm). Greek type, with some Roman, 48 lines plus headline. collation: π^2-1 1¹⁰ 2⁴ a–z⁸ aa–hh⁸ ii4 A–Z⁸ AA–DD⁸ EE⁴: 488 paginated (in two sequences) leaves (bifolium 1.2 wrapped around gathering 1, 2 4 and ii4 blank). Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and EE4v, four- to seven-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Short wormtrail in first four quires costing a few letters, some marginal wormholes throughout, many with early patches, marginal dampstain at beginning and end, most intrusive in final two quires, requiring some marginal repair.)

binding: Venetian alla greca binding (310 x 215 mm) likely by the Fugger Binder, 1540s, gold tooled red goatskin over wooden boards, edges cut flush and grooved, raised headcaps, frame composed of three gilt fillets, flanked by broad lines painted black, gilt arabesque cornerpieces, central armorial shield (painted black or oxidized silver) flanked by gilt-lettered PLA. |OPE. on upper cover and F | B on lower, traces of four three-strand braided clasps on lower cover attaching to a pin in groove on upper cover, smooth spine blind-ruled in six diapered compartments, edges marbled in gold and purple, top edge with a large letter P incorporated in the marbling design. (Some restoration, principally to spine, a little rubbed and scuffed, endpapers lost.)

provenance: Unidentified owner, armorial supralibros, initials F B on lower cover — unidentified owner, illegible late- eighteenth/early-nineteenth-century circular black inkstamp on second leaf — unidentified owner, a few Greek annotations in an early hand — Minoïde Mynas (Konstantinos Minas) (1798–1859), his Greek inscription in red ink on opening text page a1 — Duchon & H. Labitte, Paris, Catalogue des livres … composant la bibliothèque de feu M. Minoïde-Mynas, Paris, 14–19 May 1860, lot 58; purchased by — unidentified owner (FF 25) — Heribert Boeder (1928–2013); his sale, Christie's London, The Boeder Library, 17 June 2014, lot 164. acquisition: Purchased at Christie's via Halwas. references: UCLA 114; Adams P1436; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 116; Edit16 37450; Grolier/Aldus 17; Renouard 62/4; USTC 849832; Anna Gialdini, “Ligato alla greca” Greek-style bookbindings in early modern Venice and beyond (2024), pp. 52, 243 (this binding)