XENOPHON.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Omnia quae extant operis. First Aldine edition of the collected works of Xenophon, including the Anabasis, recounting his leadership of the Ten Thousand against the Persian Empire, and the Cyropaedia, his partly fictionalized biography of Cyrus the Great, which became a model for medieval writers of the mirror-for-princes genre.The edition is almost complete, with the only absent Xenophon text being the Apology. The edition marks the first printing of Xenophon's De Atheniensium re publica and De vectigalibus, alongside the Hellenica (which the Aldine press had published in October 1503) and the Agesilao, which had previously been erroneously attributed to Plutarch. The text was edited by Aldus's brother-in-law Gian Francesco d'Asola, who in his preface makes disparaging comments about the 1516 Filippo Giunta edition, showing the rivalry between the two great Venetian printing houses. This edition is universally recognized as superior.Provenance: library of the College of Santa Maria Coronata, Pavia (ownership inscription "Biblioth. Collegij S. Mariae Coronatae Papie[nsis]", and old small stamp on title page).

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