Beschreibung:

PINDAR (522?-443 B.C.). Olympia, Pythia, Nemea, Isthmia . Rome: Zacharias Kallierges, [1515]. 4° (226 x 156mm). Initial and several lines printed in red opening Olympia and Pythia . Woodcut initials and decorative flourishes, printer's devices on title and last verso. (Occasional very light marginal dampstaining.) 19th-century diced russia, flat spine gilt with elephant crest at top, marbled endpapers, red edges. Provenance : Beatae Mariae de Trappa ; Sir Andrew Fountaine (binding, pencilled note citing Arch's catalogue, 1815 at £6.6). THE FIRST GREEK BOOK PRINTED AT ROME, and the first edition of this work with the Scholia. By 1511 plans were underway for the establishment of a press at Rome for printing books in Greek to support the Greek college founded by Pope Leo X. Callierges, a noted Greek scribe and printer of Greek books at Venice, was enlisted, and he arrived in Rome by 1514 as master of the college under Janus Lascaris. The Greek type Callierges had used at Venice was left behind, passing to Filippo Giunta, but Callierges clearly brought with him the punches or matrices for recasting a new fount to print the Pindar. Callierges printed this first Greek book for Cornelio Benigno, chancellor of Agostino Chigi, on a press at Chigi's villa; it was not until 1517 that Greek books were printed specifically for the college. (See N. Barker, Aldus Manutius and the Development of Greek Script & Type in the Fifteenth Century , New York: 1992, and A. Hobson, "The printer of the Greek editions 'in gymnasio mediceo ad Cabillinum montem'," Studi di Biblioteconomia ... in onere di Francesco Barberi , Rome: 1976, pp.331-5.) Adams describes several variants; the Fountaine copy has the reading "της" ending the penultimate line of Β4r, A1-2 are unsigned, and A3 has red printing. Hoffman III, p.256; Adams P-1219-21.