[ESTIENNE, HENRI]. Poetae Graeci Principes heroici carminis, & alii nonnulli. Homerus, Hesiodus, Orpheus, Callim. Aratvs, Nicand. Theocrit. Moschvs, Bion, Dionysivs, Colvthvs, Tryphiodorvs. Musaeus, Theognis, Phocylides, Pythagorae aurea carmina. Fragmenta Aliorum. Henrici Stephani tetrastichon de hac sua editione Quæ facie inuitat plures inuitat ocellos quum cultu corpus compta decente nitet Natiuo prius hi nos illexere decore, Illecebras dat nouus iste nouas. [Geneva]: Excudebat Henricus Stephanus, illustris viri Huldrichi Fuggeri typographus. Anno M. D. LXVI. [1566].
Hardcover. First edition. Two parts in one volume. Full leather. Thick folio (365 x 220mm), pp. 20, [lxxii], 410, [4], 411-781; [3], [lvii] [i.e. 56], 489 [i.e. 494] - errors in pagination (misnumbering). Signatures: *5 **4 A-D8 E4 a-2b8 c6 Aa10 Bb-Ii8 Klz8 Ll-Yy8 Zz6 Zzz4; a-g4 2A-2Z6 3A-3R6 3S4 3T3. Eighteenth century calf, spine with five raised bands, gilt floral designs in the compartments and red morocco title plate. Gilt rules to boards. A.e.g. and marbled. Endpapers and pastedowns marbled. Title transliterated. Greek and Latin text. Single column in lines of 40-50. Foliated initials. Shoulder notes. Estienne device on title-page (Schreiber 9). Five calligrams (or examples of concrete poetry) at the cc. 3A6, 3B1 & 3B2 of the second part. Unnumbered blank leaf and special title-leaf to the Odssey between p. 410 & 411. Initial and terminal blanks present. Bound in before the title page are three folio leaves containing pasted in leaves from other old Estienne printings on Homer, Hesiod, and Theocritus, one on vellum. The recto of the first leaf contains a pen and ink drawing, in a very accomplished hand, of a floral wreath enclosing the title of the book 'Poetae Graeci', similar but smaller illustrations in the same hand adorn the following five pages.
Condition: VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Binding secure. Expertly re-backed with the majority of the original spine laid down. New head and tail band. Occasional light spotting. A few leaves browned. Light water staining in the final gutter margins. Occasional small insignificant paper repairs in the margins. Moderate surface marking to covers. Rare.
Note: This is Henri Estienne's monumental assemblage of the Greek poets and is recognised as his 'Typographic Masterpiece'. The letterpress is in Latin and Greek throughout, the Greek printed in the two largest sizes of the "grecs du roi", modelled on the handwriting of the Cretan copyist Angelo Vergecio, it had been brought from Paris to Geneva by his father Robert Estienne in 1551. The first part of the work is focussed only on the Homeric poems, at the end Estienne adds 57 pages of Annotations (P. 1 - P. LVII). The second part includes much improved texts of Theocritus, Hesiod, Bion and Aratus etc; and the first editions of the fragments of a number of early Greek poets - Solon, Tyrtaeus and Mimnernus. Overall a very good, complete, and well preserved copy of one of the most typographically pleasing books of the Sixteenth Century. Adams P1699. Schreiber 160 - ' This is unquestionably Henri Estienne's Typographic Masterpiece '. Renouard p. 126. Brunet IV, 757.
