Suidas, Lexicon, Venice, Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, 1514, early eighteenth-century French red morocco by Du Seuil, the Sutherland-Clark copy, fine paper

Suidas. Suida. Soyida. To men paron biblion, Soyida. Hoi de syntaxamenoi toyto, andres sophoi [Greek]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio & Andrea Torresano, February 1514

Fine paper, the Sutherland-Clark copy.

Second edition. The first edition of this tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia was published by Bissolo and Mangio in Milan in 1499. The Aldine edition is based on a different manuscript. Renouard notes that this edition is "often better, as many lacunae are thankfully filled." "Suda" (or sometimes "Suida") is not an author’s name but derives from the Greek word σούδα, meaning "fortress" or "stronghold."

Super-chancery folio (316 x 208 mm). Greek type, 56 lines. collation: aα-zψ⁸ &ω⁸ AA-ZΨ⁸ &Ω⁸ AA AA⁸: 392 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device to title-page and verso of last leaf, guide letters in initial spaces. (Areas of dampstaining, including one to the upper margin in the middle quires.)

binding: Early eighteenth-century French red morocco by Du Seuil (337 x 222 mm), three gilt fillets around sides, gilt arms of Duke of Sutherland on covers, spine richly gilt, marbled endleaves. (Flyleaf with chips to upper and outer edges and a hole affecting a portion of early inscription, slightest wear to joints.)

provenance: Unidentified owners, early inscriptions "M. Lynceus" and "M. Μακρoσ" on endleaf, others lined out, occasional marginalia — George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1^st Duke of Sutherland (1758-1833), armorial supralibros; his sale, Sotheby's London, 29-31 October 1913, lot 630; purchased by — Maggs Bros, London — Charles W. Clark (1871-1933); The Library of Charles W. Clark (San Francisco 1914), I, p.124 — Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia. acquisition: Purchased from John Fleming, New York, 1970. references: UCLA 119; Renouard 70/11; Edit16 37492; USTC 800455