PINDAR.

£10,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

A very good and fascinating copy of the important editio princeps of Pindar’s victory odes, with contemporary annotations in Greek. This is the basis for most subsequent editions, elegantly printed with a larger Greek type than that usually employed by Aldus. Pindar (c. 518-438 BC), a native of Thebes, was one of the greatest Greek lyric poets. Highly regarded in antiquity, he was defined by Quintilian and Horace as ‘inimitable for the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence’. Pindar composed forty-four victory songs to be performed by a choir during the formal celebrations at the four panhellenic athletic festivals. These are here published for the first time, grouped into four books named after the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean Games – held respectively at Olympia, Delphi, Corinth and Nemea. This edition, dedicated by Aldus to his friend and poet Andrea Navagero (1483-1529), also includes the 1dition princeps of Lycophron’s poem ‘Alexandra’ and the second editions of the hymns of Callimachus (first 1494) and of Dionysius’ geographical treatise ‘De situ Orbis’ (first 1512). The earliest annotation is the monogram ‘ΦΚ’, composed of the two Greek letters ‘F” and ‘K’, which usually stands for the name ‘Phocas’. The cross in between the two letters presumably indicates a connection with a church or a religious order, and it is possible that the monogram belonged to a priest. In Venice, St. Phocas was venerated as patron saint of s

• Binding: Hardcover

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