Collection

First edition of the text with commentaries, as Aldus’s 1513 editio princeps contained the text alone. Kallierges’s Pindar represents the first book to be printed in Rome exclusively in Greek, preceding the Operetta Bellissima with D. Damilas’s typeface in 1510. The book was published under the sponsorship of Cornelio Benigni, a patron of arts and letters in Rome at that time. Kallierges’s Greek printing house was set up in a building allotted to him by Agostino Chigi. The book is printed in black and red ink (= the initial letters, the titles of the Odes and phrases in the text). The title page is ornamented with two printer’s marks, those of Kallierges and also of Benigni, which appears for the first time in the history of typography, his mark probably having been designed by Kallierges. The frontispiece is complemented with the name of the author, the title, the place, the printer’s name and the privilege of exclusivity granted by Pope Leo X. It is the most comprehensive title page of a Greek book to date.

Format: 23 cm

Page description: lv. [240]

References: Hoffmann III, 97 • BH I/1 47 • PAP Ι, 4853 • Charta Ι, 398-400

Entity: Renaissance – Humanism

Item Type: Book