Beschreibung:

THUCYDIDES (c.460-c.399 B.C.). De bello Peloponnesiaco , in Greek, with Latin translation by Lorenzo Valla, edited by Henri II Estienne. [Geneva:] Henri II Estienne, 1588. 2° (345 x 219mm). Large printer's device on title, ornamental headpieces and initials, factotum initials. Greek and Latin in parallel columns, shoulder notes, scholia in 3 columns at page foot. (First leaf lightly soiled and repaired at hinge.) FINE PARISIAN GOLD-TOOLED WHITE LEATHER BINDING OF C.1600, kidskin or deerskin over pasteboard, the sides elaborately decorated with fillets, repeated fleurons and star tools to a saltire design, with leafy sprays and the holy monogram in the resulting compartments, outer border formed by the repeated impression of a Duodo-style marguerite tool, unidentified arms in the centre, flat spine decorated with the same fleuron and marguerite tools, traces of two pairs of ties, gilt edges (minor repair to joints), modern solander box of citron morocco with clear front. Provenance : Cortland F. Bishop (booklabel, sale 15 Nov. 1938, where binding is attributed to Clovis Eve ; Douglas Maxwell Moffat (booklabel, sold Christie's New York, 14 May 1985, lot 238). A handsome binding of remarkable colour and design. The small apparently foreign arms block has been fitted perfectly into the centre of the saltire, and the binding may have been commissioned from a Paris shop by a German nobleman. This the second Estienne edition, is generally considered the best of the 16th century. For it the great scholar-printer further revised Valla's Latin translation; he also added notes to the reading of the Greek scholia, "a valuable exposition of the special vocabulary and technical terminology used by the Greek scholiasts" (Schreiber 216). Adams T-667; PMMM 102.