Live auction - Lot 1076
The earliest known version of any part of the Homeric corpus to appear in Italian
Il primo libro de la Iliade d'Homero, tradotta di greco in volgare per M. Francesco Gussano.
Venice, [T. Botietta] for C. da Trino, 1544
Hammer price: €
3.200
€ 2.500 / 3.000
Live bidding (Drouot*) Live bidding (Invaluable*)Bidding is closed
Lot description
Sm. 8vo: 23 ff. (last bl. missing; sl. soiling, sm. damp stain to lower margin).
Mod. three-quarter brown shagreen, marbled paper covers, gilt titled flat spine (rubbed).
First Italian translation of the first book of The Iliad. The translator Gussano affirming in the preface that "il Principe di tutti i poeti Homero; che, per opera mia di Greco e hormai divenuto Italiano" (f. 2). He also mentions that the 23 other books are ready to be printed, but they never were published. Printer's mark on title.
Ref. EDIT16 29825. - Hoffman II:495 (erroneously dates the ed. of 1543). - STC Italy 331. - Not in Gamba, Adams, Dibdin.
Prov. A.W. Barten, Director of the "School voor de Grafische vakken" in Utrecht until 1942. He owned an important library containing some incunabula and postincunabula (bookpl.).
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