Pollux, Onomasticon; Stephanus Byzantinus, De urbibus, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1502, Roman dark brown goatskin, ca. late 1520s

Pollux, Julius. Iouliou Polideukous Onomasticon. Iulii Pollucis Vocabularium [Greek and Latin]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, April 1502

[Bound with:] Stephanus Byzantinus, Stephanos Peri poleon. Stephanus De vrbibus [Greek and Latin]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, January 1502

Editiones principes of two works often found bound together, as anticipated by Aldo. The publication of Stephanus of Byzantium's work had been planned for quite some time; Aldo had applied for copyright in December 1498. Another printer of Greek texts in Venice (and a former collaborator of Aldo's), Gabriele Braccio da Brasichella, had applied for copyright of Pollux's Onomasticon in March 1498, but nothing is known of Gabriele after June 1498.

Pollux (fl. 2nd century), who is mentioned in Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists, was the chair of rhetoric at the Athenian Academy under Emperor Commodus. Stephanus (fl. 6th century) is known as a Greek grammarian from Byzantium only through the fragmentary survival of the present text. Together their two works form an essential reference book on the ancient world, part encyclopedia, part lexicon, and part gazetteer. As a concession to readers with limited Greek, Aldo included tables of contents in Latin as well as Greek.

Aldo did not have access to the complete text of Stephanus of Byzantium, so he left signature F (containing the rest of the letter K) out of the collation in order for this quire to be added by the owner at a later date, if it ever came to light.

Two works in one volume, Super-Chancery folio (313 x 218 mm). Pollux: Greek type, with some Roman, 55 lines plus headline. collation: AA⁴ [ΒB]⁴ αa–vn⁸: 112 leaves. Principal text in two columns, three-, five-, and six-line initial spaces with guide letters. Stephanus Byzantinus: Greek type, with some Roman, 55 lines plus headline. collation: ΑA–ΕE⁸ ΗG–ΛL⁸: 80 leaves. Principal text in two columns, four- and five-line initial spaces with guide letters. (A few scattered stains, short marginal tear to final leaf of Stephanus.)

binding: Roman dark brown goatskin (322 x 222 mm), ca. late 1520s, evidently by a shop christened by A. Hobson as "The Classical Binder," panelled with gold (a low grade alloy) and blind fillets, central panel with gilt fleuron at inner angles and central roundel composed of repeated "sus" shaped tool and containing four gilt fleurons arranged as a quatrefoil, traces of four pairs of brown fabric ties, spine in four compartments, second with an eighteenth-century morocco label, plain endpapers, edges speckled blue and red. (Extremities somewhat worn, spine repaired, with remnants of other later morocco labels to first and third compartments, front joint cracked at head.)

provenance: Earls of Macclesfield, family library (Shirburn Castle), armorial blind stamp on first two leaves, North Library armorial bookplate with pressmark 9.E.4; Sotheby's London, The Library of the Earls of Macclesfield … Part Twelve, 2 October 2008, lot 4677. acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby's via Halwas. references: (Pollux:) UCLA 54; Adams P1787; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 57; Edit16 36138; Renouard 32/1; USTC 850213; (Stephanus Byzantinus:) UCLA 53; Adams S1717; Aldo manuzio tipografo 56; Edit16 36142; Renouard 38/15; USTC 857537