Beschreibung:

LASCARIS, Constantinus (1434-1501). Erotemata , in Greek. Milan: Dionysius Paravisinus, 30 January 1476. Median 4° (233 x 161mm). Collation: [1 4 2-7 1 0 8 12 ] (1/1-2 blank, 1/3r preface by Demetrius Damilas in Greek, 1/4r Demetrius's preface in Latin, 2/1r text, 8/11-12 blank). 76 leaves. 25 lines. Type: 1:117Gk (text), 2:118R (preface, colophon). Initial spaces with guide-letters, traces of MS. signatures, pinholes visible. (A few small wormholes only occasionally touching text.) Contemporary Italian half reversed deerskin dyed red over wooden boards (rubbed), blindstamped with double fillets, single fore-edge clasp removed from front cover, original catch on rear cover, vellum quire guards. Provenance : contemporary commonplaces and verses in Greek written on first and last leaves, one marginal annotation. FIRST EDITION of Lascaris' important Greek grammar and the "FIRST ENTIRELY GREEK BOOK PRINTED" (Proctor p.7). Prefixed to Lascaris' text is a preface in both Greek and Latin by Demetrius Damilas which makes it clear that Demetrius designed, or at least was responsible for, the type. Demetrius worked as a professional scribe, and over 50 surviving manuscripts are attributed to him. He based the type not on his own hand, but on that of his fellow scribe, Michael Apostolis. Proctor considered it "the first type of genuinely Hellenic character", influential well beyond the number of editions printed with it. The type was used again by Bonus Accursius to print Crastoni's Lexicon and an edition of Aesop, and its matrices supplied the type, with some revisions and additions, for the great 1488 editio princeps of Homer. The Erotemata is the only work printed by this press. Paravisinus had previously printed with others at Cremona and Como, and in 1478 he printed the Rudimenta grammatices by Perottus with Dominicus de Vespolate at Milan. The significance of the Greek printing of the Erotemata was recognised even by contemporaries, and Politian commemorated it in epigrams on Paravisinus and Demetrius which were published in his Opera in 1498. Constantine Lascaris was a pupil of John Argyropoulos when Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453. In Milan he taught Greek and copied Greek manuscripts, but from about 1465 he was at Messina, where he taught the future Cardinal Pietro Bembo and where he died from the plague in 1501. He bequeathed his personal library to the city of Messina, and it survives, including 76 Greek manuscripts, at the Bibliotheca Nacional in Madrid. While the binding is strictly contemporary, the boards may once have been covered fully with leather now removed, as witnessed by the impression of double fillets around the sides. Copies of the 1476 Lascaris in a contemporary binding are OF THE UTMOST RARITY. Of the recorded copies, the Broxbourne copy (sold in 1978) is one of only two others known to retain its 15th-century binding; the Spranger copy (sold in 1989) was in contemporary wrappers. The present copy is larger than three of the British Library copies, and is in very fresh condition. HC 9920; BMC VI, 731 (IB. 26273-76); Goff L-65; IGI 5690; CIBN L-47; Proctor Printing of Greek , p.51-59; Barker Greek Script and Type , pp.37ff.