Beschreibung:

GREEK ANTHOLOGY -- Anthologia Graeca Planudea , in Greek. Recension by Maximus Planudes (c.1299), edited by Janus Lascaris (1445-1535). Florence: Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 11 August 1494.
GREEK ANTHOLOGY -- Anthologia Graeca Planudea , in Greek. Recension by Maximus Planudes (c.1299), edited by Janus Lascaris (1445-1535). Florence: Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 11 August 1494. Median 4° (211 x 143mm). Collation: A-\kV\K AA-KK 8 (A1r blank, A1v Greek alphabet and vowels, title and table of contents, A2r-KK8v text); [\kLL\K 8 ] (1r Lascaris' verse epilogue in Greek, 1v-7v editor's dedicatory letter to Piero de' Medici in Latin, 7v Latin colophon, 8 blank). 280 leaves. Types: 5a and 5b:114Gk, 116R. 28 lines. 4-line illuminated initial with classical motif opening the text, other initial spaces blank. Foliated in a contemporary Italian hand. (Some marginal wormtracks, occasional spotting and staining, heavier at end.) 19th-century English green hard-grained morocco gilt, marbled endpapers, gilt edges (a few small scuffs). Provenance : extensive contemporary Greek annotations, mostly marginal and on blank leaves (see below) -- Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872; sold Sotheby's 28 November 1977, lot 5251, £1,600) -- André Himpe ( De Gulden Passer 2003, no. 8). THE PHILLIPPS COPY OF THE EDITIO PRINCEPS OF THE PLANUDEAN ANTHOLOGY. It belongs to the first issue, complete with Lascaris' verse epilogue and dedication addressed to Piero de' Medici as the final quire, which is often missing. This was suppressed from the second issue, no doubt because of Piero's proscription and flight from Florence in 1494. An early owner has added other Greek poems in elegiac verse - not in the Anthologia - and prose. Of the poems, one has not been traced and two, including one dedicated to Hermes, have been included in modern anthologies (Kaibel, Epigrammata Graeca , 1878, no. 815; Peek, Griechische Grabgedichte , 1960, no. 432). The text of this poetic collection is that revised by Planudes in 1299; it was adopted by all subsequent editors until the earlier Palatine Anthology was rediscovered and printed several centuries later. The Greek Anthology is printed entirely in Lorenzo's fount of two sets of Greek capitals, designed by Lascaris. Lascaris explains in his dedicatory letter that, owing to the difficulties in reproducing Greek script, he has used capital letter forms found in antique inscriptions. The plan was short-lived and two years later a true lower-case fount -- every bit as complicated as those condemned by Lascaris -- was introduced to print scholia. Proctor, Printing of Greek p. 78-79; Barker p. 39-42; Wilson p. 98-99; HC *1145; GW 2048; BMC VI, 666 (IB. 28002-5); IGI 599; CIBN A-410; Rhodes, Annali 40; Flodr, Anthologia 1; Goff (+ Suppl.) A-765.