Thucydides | The Esmerian-Hoe copy of the first and still most famous work in the Western historical tradition

Thucydides. 

Thoukydidis. Thucydides [Greek]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, May 1502

Folio (322 x 206 mm). Greek type, with some italic and Roman, 55 lines plus headline. Collation: ^πΑA⁸ ΑA–ΞO⁸ ΟP⁴: 124 leaves; title-page a little soiled. French black morocco, c.1540, likely from the atelier of Étienne Roffet, central gilt arabesque to covers, double gilt filets with cornerpieces, spine gilt with six-petal rosette tools, edges gilt; head of spine a little worn, joints very lightly cracked.

A fine, tall copy, complete with the two final blank leaves, of the first Greek edition of the earliest and still most famous work in the Western historical tradition and the foundation of "scientific history."

Printed by Aldus Manutius in May 1502, this was among the earliest classical historians issued from the Aldine press. Prepared from manuscripts supplied by the Venetian patrician Daniele Renier, the edition appeared just before Aldus’s Herodotus, in the same folio format, on the same paper stock, and with the same smaller Greek type; the two are often found bound together.

The binding, a refined Parisian morocco of around 1540, belongs to the elegant Renaissance idiom associated with the atelier of Étienne Roffet, relieur du roi to François I. The layout — a central gilt arabesque within a panel of double gilt fillets with azured fleurons and six-petal rosettes in the spine compartments — accords closely with tools used in his shop. Esmerian described it as a "fort belle reliure d’une sobre élégance," and the copy is illustrated as no. 120 in the first Esmerian sale.

A well-provenanced and finely bound example.

REFERENCES

UCLA 57; Adams T 662; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 60; Edit16 55824; Renouard 33/4; USTC 859004

PROVENANCE

Early owners (manuscript ownership inscriptions to title and margins) — unidentified armorial bookplate — Robert Hoe (morocco booklabel to pastedown; his sale, 1912, II, no. 3239) — Raphaël Esmerian (booklabel; his sale, Georges Blaizot and Claude Guérin, Paris, 6 June 1972, lot 120)