Beschreibung:

POLIZIANO, Angelo (1454-1494). Opera. Edited by Alexander Sartius. Venice: Aldus Manutius July 1498. First edition of the complete works of the preeminent humanist scholar of the Florentine Renaissance, Angelo Poliziano—the Charles W. Clark copy, with early marginalia and underlining. Poliziano, also known as Politian, began preparing this edition before his death, first with Bolognese printer Plato de Benedictis and then, after that man’s death, with Aldus. He edited and arranged his correspondence and other writings into a “kind of history of late quattrocento humanism, one which would document for all time [his] own preeminent role” (Butler). Renouard describes this edition as “one of the most beautiful to come out of the Aldine press,” and it contains Aldus’s first use of Hebrew types. The contents offer an intimate view into the life and mind of one of the most influential figures of the Renaissance, whose work “brought about a revolution in philological method” (Grafton). The collection is dedicated to Piero de Medici, the unfortunate son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Poliziano’s preface is a tour-de-force attempt at girding the unhappy prince’s reputation in the style of Cicero’s De amicitia. Ironically, Poliziano’s death—once rumored to be the consequence of a fever caused by a love affair with a young man—is now suspected to have been arsenic poisoning, perhaps by Piero. Ahmanson-Murphy 26; BMC V, 559; BSB-Ink P-663; CIBN P-539; Clemons and Fletcher 14; Goff P-886; HC 13218*; IGI 7952; ISTC ip00886000; Renouard Alde , 17:4. See Butler, Angelo Poliziano: Letters Vol. 1 (2006) and Grafton, Defenders of the Text (1994). Royal folio (287 x 190mm). 452 leaves. Greek, Roman, and Hebrew types (first 2 leaves browned, small repair to corner of title). Early 19th-century gilt-ruled straight-grain morocco by Charles Lewis edges gilt (edges lightly scuffed). Provenance : early marginalia and underlining – Charles W. Clark (1871-1933, Catalogue I, 100; note on endpaper).