Valla, De expetendis et fugiendis rebus, Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1501, eighteenth-century vellum-backed pink marbled boards

Valla, Giorgio. Georgii Vallae Placentini viri clariss. De expetendis, et fugiendis rebus opus, in quo haec continentur. De arithmetica libri III ubi quaedam a Boetio praetermissa tractantur. De musica libri V. De geometria libri VI. De tota astrologia libri IV. De physiologia libri IV De medicina libri VII Problematum liber unus. De grammatica libri IV. De dialectica libri III. De poetica liber unus. De rhethorica libri II. De morali philosophia liber unus. De oeconomia, sive administratione domus libri III Politicon unicum volumen De corporis commodis, & incommodis libriIII quorum primus totus de anima [in 2 volumes]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, December 1501

First edition of Valla's massive—in every sense—compendium of classical and contemporary thought in several branches of learning, including mathematics, medicine, astronomy, geometry, poetics and dialectics, illustrated with a multitude of woodcut and typographic diagrams. Edited for publication after Valla's death by his adopted son, Giovanni Pietro, De expetendis, et fugiendis rebus opus was printed on the largest size of paper that Aldo ever used at his press.

Valla had learned Greek from Constantine Lascaris and was appointed to one of Venice's public lectureships in 1485. He was a major figure in Venetian Greek studies at the end of the fifteenth century, with a fine collection of Greek manuscripts that attracted many scholars. Valla introduced Aldo to the intellectual circles of Venice when he first arrived there, and many of Aldo's first editors and authors—including Pietro Bembo, Niccolò Leoniceno, and Alessandro Benedetti—were pupils and associates of Valla.

"For the next forty years at least, De Rebus Expetendis remained almost the only printed source of reference for the works of Apollonius, Archimedes, the Eutocius commentaries, and Hero. It was used extensively by Leonardo and Copernicus" (Paul Lawrence Rose, The Italian Renaissance of Mathematics: Studies on Humanists and Mathematicians [Cambridge, 1975], p. 48). The text also includes the first printed commentaries on Euclid based on the Greek text (these by Valla himself) and the first printing of Ptolemy's star catalogue (the Almagest was not printed until 1515).

Two volumes, Super-Royal folio (412 x 278 mm). Roman type, 55 lines plus headline. collation: (Vol. 1:) *⁸ □⁶ a–z⁸ aa–nn⁸ oo–pp⁶: 314 leaves. (Vol. 2:) A–Z⁸ AA–TT⁸: 336 leaves. Two- to twelve-line initial spaces with guide letters, vol. 1 with a multitude of woodcut and typographic diagrams and illustrations. (Vol. 1: Title-page a bit soiled, single small wormhole to first few leaves, tiny unobtrusive wormtrail at inner margin of quire ll, some slight marginal dampstaining to last few leaves. Vol. 2: first page a bit soiled, wormhole briefly extending to a trail at upper inner margin of quires S–Z only occasionally touching a letter, some dampstaining to lower margin at end occasionally intruding on text, a very few scattered sheets browned.

binding: Eighteenth-century vellum-backed pink marbled boards (420 x 288 mm), spines with pink and green morocco labels, plain endpapers and edges. (Worn and scraped, spines soiled and chipped, with substantial loss to head of first vol.)

provenance: possibly Giovanni Musuro, friend and learned collaborator of Aldo Manuzio, inscription "Jo. Mus. 15.10f " on title-page and first page of vol. 2 — Sir Frederick Arthur Gore Ouseley, 2^nd Baronet (1825–1889) — St. Michael's College, Tenbury Wells — Sotheby's London, 26 June 1978, lot 178. acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby's via Martin Breslauer, Inc. references: UCLA 48; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 50; Adams V147; Edit16 46533; Renouard 30/8; USTC 861868