Beschreibung:

DIOSCORIDES PEDIANUS (1st century A.D.). De materia medica , in Greek: \kPeri ylhs iatrikhs\K. And two short spurious texts. -NICANDER Colophonensis (late 3rd century - ca. 130 B.C.). Theriaca and Alexipharmaca , in Greek. With gloss. Edited by Aldus Manutius (ca. 1450-1515). Venice: Aldus Manutius July 1499. Aldine 2° (308 x 212mm). Collation: * 6 (1r title and two-distich epigram on Nicander, 1v Aldus's dedicatory letter to Hieronymus Donatus [1454/57-1511/13], 2r-6r table, 6v blank); α-ο 8 π 10 (Materia medica bks. 1-5, o4v pseudo-Dioscorides bk. 6 \kPeri dhlhthrivn farmakvn\K, π2r bks. 7-9 \kPeri iobolvn\K, π9v register, π10 blank); Α-Δ 8 Ε 6 (A1r Nicander Υηριακα and gloss, Δ6r \kAlejifarmaka\K and gloss, Ε6r register and colophon, Ε6v blank); 2 α 10 (Greek scholia on Alexipharmaca). 169 leaves (of 184; table and scholia in manuscript facsimile by Fyot for Chardin, before binding). Types 7:114Gk (texts and gloss), the second Aldine Greek, mostly a reduced copy of the first (see lot 39), cut by Francesco Griffo after Immanuel Rhusotas' calligraphy (Barker p. 58); 2:114R (dedication, register, colophon), also cut by Griffo. 40 lines. Commentary surrounding Nicander. Initial-spaces with guide-letters. (A few tiny round wormholes at beginning and end filled, affecting individual letters.) Gold-tooled dark-purple straight-grained morocco, multiple roll borders on sides, the field finely diapered, the spine with double raised bands, small tools massed in its compartments, turn-ins with floral roll, pink silk liners, vellum flyleaves, gilt edges, binding signed at foot of spine by Bozerian jeune. Provenance : Charles Chardin, Parisian bookseller, who commissioned the facsimiles from Fyot (inscription) and no doubt the binding from François Bozerian; Samuel Butler Bishop of Lichfield (Christie's 1840-41, pt. 3 of the collection not sold at auction, but privately to Payne and Foss; quotation from Renouard about the edition, and inscription in French, signed by Butler with his initials, about the relative merits of his two copies); Beriah Botfield (not in P. & F. Acquisitions list). EDITIO PRINCEPS (first published in Latin at Colle di Valdelsa 1478, GW 8436). The dedicatee of this first Greek edition was Venetian ambassador to Portugal and in Germany, friend of Politian's, student of Greek literature (particularly Aristotle) and author of various treatises and latin verse; he negotiated the peace between Venice and Pope Julius II. "This was the first authoritative work of antiquity on the Materia medica , that branch of science which treats of remedial substances ... It was first in circulation in Greek in about A.D. 78 ... It is no exaggeration to say that from its publication until well into the seventeenth century -- even after the appearance of the Pinax of Bauhinus in 1623 -- all botanical studies were based on this book, and the greater part of any new botanical matter published during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was in the form of a commentary on Dioscorides." (PMM 20). The two works by Nicander are didactic poems in hexameters, which survive complete. They treat of snakes, poisons and antidotes. The second tract's scholia (here supplied in early facsimile) are not mentioned in the title and, being set to occupy its own quire in the third Aldine Greek type which does not appear in any quantity until 1501, were undoubtedly printed at a later date for a second issue of the edition. HC *6257; GW 8435; BMC V, 560 (IB. 24488-91, 24492 Grenville Bequest is the other Butler copy); Goff D-260; IGI 3491; Renouard 21.4; Flodr, Dioscorides 1. Botfield 228-29.