Xenophon, Paraleipomena, Venice, Aldo, 1503, French green straight-grained morocco gilt by François Bozerian Jeune

Xenophon. Xenophontos Paraleipomena, aper kai Ellenika ekalese. Georgiou Gemistou tou kai Pletonos, ek ton Diodorou, kai Ploutarchou, peri ton meta ten ek Mantineia machen, en kephalaiois dialepsis. Erodianou tes meta Markon basileias istorion biblia octo. Scholia palaia, kai xynoptika es olon ton Thoukydiden, on choris ouk euxynetos o xyngrapheus. Xenophontis omissa: quae & Graeca gesta appellantur. Georgii Gemisti: qui & Pletho dicitur: ex Diodori: & Plutarchi historiis de iis: quae post pugnam ad Mantineam gesta sunt: per capita tractatio. Herodiani a Marci principatu historiarum libri octo: quos Angelus Politianus elegantissime Latinos fecit. Enarratiunculae antiquae & perbreues in totum Thucydidem sine quibus autor intellectu est quamdifficillimus [Latin and Greek]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, October 1503

Editio princeps of any text of Xenophon, the Eugène de Beauharnais-Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica copy.

This edition is a compendium of historical texts, all in first editions, beginning with the Hellenica of Xenophon, a work dealing with the events of the Peloponnesian war from 411 to 404 BC, complementary to Thucydides, and covering Greek history down to the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC. The short compilation of Georgius Gemistus Plethon (just over 20 pages) follows; this text was based on Diodorus and Plutarch and the story continues on from Mantinea down to Alexander, ending with Chaeronea (338 BC). This short section was reissued separately with a title-page in 1525. The history of Herodian, a writer of the third century of doubtful reliability, comes third, covering the period AD 180–238, from Marcus Aurelius to Gordian. The scholia on Thucydides, whom Aldo had published in the preceding year, conclude the volume.

Chancery folio (311 x 204 mm). Greek type, with some Roman, 55 lines plus headline. collation: α–η⁸ θ⁴ ι–μ⁸ ν⁴ ξ–τ⁸ υ–φ⁶: 156 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and φ6v, six-line initial spaces with guide letters. (Lightly washed, a few small wormholes to final leaf, one repaired, lower fore-edge corners of last quire restored.)

binding: French green straight-grained morocco gilt (322 x 218 mm) by François Bozerian Jeune, ca. 1810, signed at foot of spine, covers with broad gilt drawer-handle border [roulette 27 in Culot, J.-C. Bozerian (1979)] within double gilt fillets, gilt sunbursts at corners, spine in six compartments, gilt-lettered in the second and third, others densely gilt with leafy tools on closely pointillé ground, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, edges gilt. (Trifling rubbing to extremities.) Green buckram folding-case, black morocco labels.

provenance: S. Rochus, Toulouse (Convent of Minims), seventeenth-century ownership inscription on title-page — Eugène de Beauharnais, duc de Leuchtenberg et prince d'Eichstätt (1781–1824); by descent to — Georges de Leuchtenberg, prince Romanowsky (1872–1929); Paul Graupe, Auktion 87: Die Bibliothek des Herzogs Georgij N. von Leuchtenberg, Berlin, 15–16 April 1929, lot 885; purchased by — Unidentified owner (RM 620) — Martin Breslauer Inc., New York; Catalogue 110 (New York, 1992), item 172 ($28,000) — Joost R. Ritman (b. 1941), bookplate of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica; Sotheby's London, A Selection of Printed Books … the Property of Mr. J. R. Ritman, Sold for the Benefit of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam, London, 12 December 2000, lot 72; purchased by — unidentified owner (£29,000) — Libreria Philobiblon, Rome & Milan; catalogue Aldus 1495–1501: XII Mostra del Libro Antico Milano 2001 (Rome & Milan, 2001), item 12 (price on request) — perhaps Percy Nils Barnevik (b. 1941) — Sotheby's London, Italian Books, 1470–1600, 3 October 2002, lot 312 (£40,032). acquisition: Purchased at Sotheby's via Halwas. references: UCLA 78; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 80; Edit16 55858; Renouard 41/7; USTC 863986; binding cited by Paul Culot, Le décor néo-classique des reliures françaises au temps du Directoire, du Consulat et de l’Empire (Brussels 2015), p. 32