SOPHOCLES.

£5,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

A splendid copy of this beautifully printed edition of Sophocles’ seven tragedies in Greek. The fine 18th century binding resembles in style the bindings realised by the celebrated French bookbinders Pierre-Paul Dubuisson (1746-1762) and Louis Douceur (d. 1769), particularly for the gilt floral design of the compartments on the spine and the presence of charming pomegranates (for a similar rolls of flowers and pomegranates on Dubuisson’s and Doceur’s bindings, see: Cyclopaedia.org, ‘Pierre-Paul Dubuisson 1757’ and G. Barber, Catalogue of Printed Books and Bookbindings, ROLL 70). Sophocles (c. 496-406 BC) is one of the greatest ancient Greek tragic playwrights, with Aeschylus and Euripides. Only seven out of more than a hundred plays by him have survived, and they are all included in this volume: ‘Ajax’, ‘Antigone’, ‘Women of Trachis’, ‘Oedipus Rex’, ‘Electra’, ‘Philoctetes’ and ‘Oedipus at Colonus’. This remarkable edition, “at the present day (…) held in great estimation” (Dibdin), contains the important scholia – explanatory comments – printed in 1518 by Aldus in Rome plus those of Turnebius’ edition of 1554, all revised and corrected by Estienne. The scholia are elegantly printed in a smaller font and frame the tragedies, with occasional indexes pointing to the verses. Appended are additional scholia by the Byzantine philologist Demetrius Triclinius concerning Sophocles’ metre, together with a long erudite commentary by the German classical scholar Joachim Camerarius (1500

• Binding: Hardcover

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