Pindarou, Olympia. Pythia. Nemea. Isthmia. Meta oxegeseos palaias panu ophelemou, kai scholion homoion Pindar, ed. Zacharias Kallierges [Very Good] [

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THE CONYBEARE-ORMEROD-GAISFORD COPY OF ""THE MOST IMPORTANT PINDAR EDITION EVER"" Rome: Zacharias Kallierges, 13 August 1515. Editio princeps of the scholia. Quarto in 8s (8 3/8"" x 5 3/4"", 212mm x 147mm). [Full collation available; complete with iota6 and Theta10 blank.] Section titles to the Olympian and odes printed in red and black. Bound in later (ca. 1800?) calf, panelled in blind with acorn cornerpieces. On the spine, five raised bands. Title and author gilt to black calf in the second panel, ""EDITIO/PRINCEPS"" gilt to black calf at the tail. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Some wear to the extremities, with some small losses to the head and tail. Tiny wormtrails to the lower edge of the front paste-down and initial blanks. Dampstain to the upper quarter of the text-block, concentrated at the front and fading almost to invisibility at the rear. Old repairs to the title-leaf, not affecting the text. [Full provenance available.] Writing in the early years of the fifth century BC, Pindar is the lyric poet -- an author of short verse in a variety of meters, as opposed to an epic poet such as Homer or Hesiod -- whose work survives best from the Archaic period. Though we know he wrote in several genres, the only corpus that comes down to us intact is his epinicia or epinicians: written upon (epi) the victories (nicia) of athletes at the four major athletic contests of Greece, viz. the Olympian (i.e., the Olympics), Pythian (at Delphi), Nemean (at Nemea in the Argolid) and Isthmian (at the isthmus of Corinth) games. Each poem celebrates the victory of an athlete (or, in some cases, a musician) at a particular event. Pindar interweaves myths and civic stories to burnish the achievements of man and polis alike. The editio princeps of Pindar is Aldus Manutius' 1513 edition, but there are serious flaws in its readings and, crucially, the scholia -- ancient commentaries -- do not appear. The present item (historically called the Romana) is the princeps of the scholia, and a much improved edition of the poems. Indeed, Staffan Fogelmark in his monograph on the edition writes: ""despite the fact that more than twenty complete editions in Greek were printed within a century, it was the 1515 edition, also known as the editio Romana, that became the vulgate text for three hundred years due to its great merits. . . and may be designated the most important Pindar edition ever."" The scholia add immeasurably both to our interpretation of Pindar's poems and their textual history, as well as to our knowledge of ancient scholarly traditions. Zacharias Kallierges (Calliergi) was born in Crete and came at the invitation of Pope Leo X, to Rome. The present work is his first published there, and the first wholly Greek book published in Rome. The book was owned by ""Juliani Roberti Parisiensia,"" viz. Julien Robert of Paris -- a XVIc French academic. It then passed through the hands of three distinguished men of...