Φαλάριδος ἐπιστολαὶ τυράννου Ἀκραγαντινωñν [Letters of Phalaris, tyrant of Acragas]
Publisher: Ex aedibus Bartholomaei Iustinopolitani, Gabrielis Brasichellensis, Ioannis Bissoli, et Benedicti Mangii carpensium, MIID 1498 xiiii. cal. Iulias.
Published: 1498-06-18
Place of publication: Venice
Language: gre
Number of pages: 130
Description: <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:120%;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Small 4to. ff. [58].
Signatures: 2α-2δ⁸ 2ε⁴ 2ζ⁸ 2η⁴ 2θ¹⁰. Nineteenth-century olive cross-grain
morocco, gilt, probably by Charles Lewis (1786-1836). Covers within gilt
multiple fillet border, smooth flat spine, richly gilt tooled, title and
imprint lettered vertically in gilt, cover edges gilt tooled, inner dentelles,
gilt edges. Imprint from colophon; title from head of 2a2. Printer’s device in
the form of a pine cone on verso of final leaf. Blank spaces for capitals with
printed guide letters. Text in Greek; colophon and dedicatory epistle to Pietro
Contarino in Latin.</span><br style="word-spacing:0px;" />
<br style="word-spacing:0px;" />
<span style="float:none;word-spacing:0px;">The celebrated and rare editio princeps of the
moral/philosophical letters once ascribed to Phalaris, the sixth century BC
tyrant of Acragas (now Agrigento, in Sicily), with the additional text of
letters by the first-century Neopythagorean Apollonius of Tyana, and by
pseudo-Brutus (Marcus Junius), from the first century BC collection of
Mithridates VI, King of Pontus. The authenticity of the ‘Phalaris’ text, here
edited by Bartholomaeus Pelusius Justinopolitanus, was demolished by Richard
Bentley in his Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris (1697 (see Bib#
1226831/Fr #39 in this collection), enlarged 1698) which prompted the notorious
and voluminous ‘Battle of the Books’ (1697-1705) between Bentley and his
academic and aristocratic opponents. Bentley demonstrated from anachronistic
details and linguistic/dialectic evidence that the composition of the letters
must date from the second century AD, and attributed the work to a
post-Christian sophist or rhetorician, possibly Adrianus of Tyre (d. 192).
Although at least 45 incunabular editions, in Latin and Italian, preceded this
Greek editio princeps, Bentley’s exposure depended above all on the Greek text.</span></p><p></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:120%;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br />
<span style="float:none;word-spacing:0px;">The present work, which can be considered a
forgery, pseudepigrapha, or ‘fictitious epistolography,’ was edited by
Bartholomaeus Pelusius Justinopolitanus and Gabriel Bracius de Brisighella, and
produced at Venice by a partnership of the printer Benedictus Mangius, the
punch-cutter Johannes Bissolus – who had previously worked for Aldus Manutius,
as the others may have done – and the two editors. On 7 March 1498, Bracius
obtained a ten-year privilege from the Signoria for the printing of the
Phalaris and three other Greek texts, only one of which (Aesop’s Vita) ever
appeared, which described the printing as ‘cum bellissima e nova invenzione [of
types]’. But apparently Aldus, who regarded the new Greek type to be a palpable
imitation of his own second Greek font, which was itself protected by a
privilege, took some kind of action against the rival partnership, which ended
its brief tenure in Venice (Nicolas Barker, Aldus Manutius and the Development
of Greek Script & Type. New York 1992, p. 65, defends the partnership’s
typeface as in fact entirely ‘new’, fine and elaborate). The editors Pelusius
and Bracius are not heard from again, and the craftsmen moved to Milan, where
they employed the same type in the massive editio princeps of Suidas by
November of the following year. Meanwhile, Aldus coolly appropriated the text
of Phalaris, reprinting it literatim in his two-volume ‘Epistolae diversorum
philosophorum, oratorum, rhetorum’ of 1499 (Bib# 4911590/Fr# 16 in this
collection).</span></span></p><p></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:120%;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br />
<span style="float:none;word-spacing:0px;">From the famous library of Beriah Botfield
(1807-1863), later by his gift to the Thynnes (Marquesses of Bath) at Longleat,
and among the books disposed of at Christies on 17 June 2002, lot 54, purchased
by Pregliasco, for Livio Ambrogio.</span></span></p><p></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:120%;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br />
<span style="float:none;word-spacing:0px;">See F. R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries:
A Third Census. Millwood (N.Y.), 1973, P-545; British Museum, Catalogue of
Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum, vol. v, p. 578; M.
Flodr, Incunabula classicorum : Wiegendrucke der griechischen und rom̈ischen
Literatur, Phalaris 1; Indice generale degli incunaboli delle biblioteche d’Italia.
</span><span lang="fr" style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#000000;" xml:lang="fr">Compilato da T.M. Guarnaschelli e E.
Valenziani [et al.]. </span><span style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#000000;">6 vols. Roma, 1943-81, (IGI)
7681; Copinger, W.A. Supplement to Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum. Part I.
London, 1895, (HC) 12871.</span></span></p><p></p>

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:120%;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br />
</span><span style="font-size:11.5pt;line-height:120%;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_6722376" style="word-spacing:0px;" rel="ugc nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog
record.</a></span></p><p></p>