ESTIENNE, Henri (editor). Οἱ tῆς ἡρωικῆς ποιήσεως πρωτεύοντες ποιηταί [Oi tês hêrôikês poiêseôs prôteuontes poiêtai]. Poetae graeci principes heroici carminis, & alii nonnulli.

Estienne's Typographic Masterpiece

ESTIENNE, Henri (editor). Οἱ tῆς ἡρωικῆς ποιήσεως πρωτεύοντες ποιηταί [Oi tês hêrôikês poiêseôs prôteuontes poiêtai]. Poetae graeci principes heroici carminis, & alii nonnulli. [Geneva:] Henri Estienne for Ulrich Fugger. 1566

Folio in 4s and 8s. Late eighteenth-century diced calf, modern morocco rebacking with original spine relaid, borders filleted in gilt, flat spine gilt-ruled in compartments, lettered directly in gilt, marbled endpapers; pp. 20, LVII, LXXII (i.e. LXX, register continuous), 410, [2], 411–781, [1 (blank)], ‘489’ (i.e. 488); text in Latin and Greek, woodcut Estienne device to title, floriated woodcut initials, ruled in red throughout, a few printed manicules and marginalia; binding lightly rubbed, extremities somewhat worn, spine chipped and worn; sporadic light marginal foxing (heavier to first few quires), small marginal oilstain to foot of ff. 2K6–2L1some marginal browning to endpapers and title, title mounted at an earlier date; otherwise very good; a few loosely inserted manuscript notes (eighteenth or nineteenth century?).

First edition of this monumental collection of works by ancient Greek poets edited and printed by Henri Estienne, set in the two largest sizes of the grecs du roi type and including his influential Homer – for which he collated eighteen editions and an ancient manuscript – which would remain the standard until the nineteenth century.

The Poetae graeci principes heroici carminis is an anthology of ancient Greek poetry, edited and printed by Henri Estienne (c. 1531–1598), one of the most distinguished humanist printers of the Renaissance. The collection was published with the support of Ulrich Fugger, a member of one of Europe’s most important banking families and a renowned collector of books and manuscripts, based in Augsburg. Poetae Graeci includes the Iliad and Odyssey, and its edition and critical text of Homer’s works by Estienne remained a standard reference until the nineteenth century. ‘It was Estienne’s text that Chapman used for his famous English translations in the early decades of the 17th century, known to many readers today only from Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” (1816)’ (Grafton, The Classical Tradition (2010), p. 331. This volume also includes the editiones principes of fragments by Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus and Solon, and was the first edition to include line numbers and a Latin translation of the Homeric Hymns. The second part also includes several examples of technopaegnia, or pattern poems, with verses arranged to form shapes.

The grecs du roi had been cut by Claude Garamond in the 1540s for Henri’s father, Robert Estienne. These characters, praised as ‘the best type of its kind that has ever been cut’ (Proctor, quoted in Updike I, pp. 236–38), were based on the handwriting of the Greek calligrapher Angelo Vergezio and reproduced features of Greek handwriting including ligatures and accents.

Provenance: From the Ombersley Court Library in Worcestershire; the library was assembled over several generations by the Sandys Family. Edwin, 2nd Baron Sandys (1726–1797) was a keen classical scholar and founding trustee of the British Museum and expanded the library to include several Greek and Latin classics.

Adams P-1699; Brunet IV, col. 757; GLN-2327; Renouard, p. 126, no. 5; Schreiber 160; USTC 450554. See Armstrong, Robert Estienne, Royal Printer: An Historical Study of the Elder Stephanus (1954); Updike, Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use: A Study in Survivals I (1922), pp. 236–238; Bernard, Histoire de l’Imprimerie royale du Louvre (1867); Amert, ‘Intertwining Strengths: Simon de Colines and Robert Estienne’, in Book History 8 (2005), pp. 1–10.

SKU: 2125236