Beschreibung:

DICTYS CRETENSIS -- Historia Troiana . [Cologne: Printer of Dictys (Arnold ther Hoernen), ca. 1469-1470]. Chancery half-sheet 4° (203 x 135mm). Collation: [1-7 8 8-9 6 ] (1/1r prologue, 1/1v text, 9/6v blank). 68 leaves. 27 (also 25, 28) lines. Type 1:99G. First page only rubricated, with 4-line initial in red, other initial spaces left blank. 18th-century German speckled calf, sides panelled in blind and gilt, spine gilt-tooled in compartments, marbled endpapers, marbled edges. Provenance : Nicolaus Johannes Leth, signature on first page and annotation on last page (fl.1701, theologian, his dissertation on Psalm xvi.10 was published in 1701). FIRST EDITION. Actually composed in the second or third century but attributed to Dictys, reputedly a companion of Idomeneus at Troy, the Historia Troiana was translated into Latin by Lucius Septimius in the fourth century. The Dictys, along with the Dares, version of the Trojan war formed the chief source for the Troy saga in the Middle Ages. Part of its popularity in the 15th century rested on equating the Turks with the ancient Trojans (called Teucri by Virgil) and the consequent parallels between the Trojan war and the campaign against the infidel Turks, which had gained new urgency with the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The eponymous press which printed the Dictys has been shown by Severin Corsten ( Die Anfänge des Kölner Buchdrucks p. 19-21) to have belonged to Arnold ther Hoernen, the second printer at Cologne, who was active from 1468. The Dictys type is one of a group first assigned to early anonymous Cologne presses; they start out almost identical and evolve in the hands of their respective printers, some of whom have been identified and some of whom remain anonymous. Based on the evolution of this type, the Dictys may be dated fairly acccurately to about 1469-1470, 1470 being the date of the first book in which ther Hoernen is named as printer and which shows the more fully developed state of the type. These Cologne types were produced by Johannes Veldener, who also supplied type to William Caxton both in Cologne and Bruges. He was the typographer for the Brothers of the Common Life at Brussels as well (see lot 17). Folio 50v reads mistakenly "Incipit liber sextus", as in other copies. According to BMC, this has been corrected in one of the British Library copies (IA. 3330), but, on closer examination, it is clear that this correction has been made after printing, probably by stamping in the correct "quintus" by hand. H 6154; GW 8324; BMC I, 210 (IA. 3329-30); Goff D-184; VK 372; Flodr, Dictys 1