Skip to content

Batrachomyomachia [The Battle of Frogs and Mice], select letters, anonymous grammatical treatise, Address to Young Men on Reading Greek Literature; Renaissance humanist manuscript in Greek and Latin on paper by Pseudo-Homer, Libanius of Antioch, and Basil of Caesarea

by Pseudo-Homer, Libanius of Antioch, and Basil of Caesarea

Batrachomyomachia [The Battle of Frogs and Mice], select letters, anonymous grammatical treatise, Address to Young Men on Reading Greek Literature; Renaissance humanist manuscript in Greek and Latin on paper by Pseudo-Homer, Libanius of Antioch, and Basil of Caesarea

Batrachomyomachia [The Battle of Frogs and Mice], select letters, anonymous grammatical treatise, Address to Young Men on Reading Greek Literature; Renaissance humanist manuscript in Greek and Latin on paper

by Pseudo-Homer, Libanius of Antioch, and Basil of Caesarea

  • Used
  • near fine
  • Hardcover
RENAISSANCE HUMANIST MANUSCRIPT IN GREEK AND LATIN ON PAPER, Northern Italy (the Veneto?), c. 1440-1470. 210 x 135-145 mm. 38 folios on paper, preceded and followed by three flyleaves, watermarks in Piccard, text lacking (collation, i12 ii6 iii4 iv6 [probably out of 8, now missing 1 and 8] v10), written in three different hands with varying layout in one or two columns of 19 to 29 lines (justification, 132-158 x 82-92 mm.). BINDING: Bound in fifteenth- or sixteenth-century brown leather, blind-tooled and -stamped with a border of multiple fillets and amphora, all over squared wooden boards, metal corner-pieces and center bosses, clasps lost. TEXT: The disparate contents of this codex illustrate the interest of educated Renaissance humanists in the language and literature of ancient Greece. It includes sections from four different manuscripts featuring the Batrachomyomachia, select letters of Libanius, an anonymous Greek grammatical treatise, and a Greek text and translation of Basil of Caesareas Address to Young Men on How They Might Derive Benefit from Greek Literature now collected together in a single volume, possibly to serve as a school book. The Batrachomyomachia is a short, jocular poem once attributed to Homer, but most probably written in the last centuries BC. It was adopted as a school text and the Latin prose translation found in this manuscript may have been composed as a school exercise. Libanius (c. 314-393) was the outstanding Greek rhetorician of the late Imperial period and his letters were considered models of refined writing style. Basil of Caesarea was a student of Libanius and his Address was widely read in schools. PROVENANCE: The first and last of the four booklets making up this composite manuscript were copied in a hand that can very likely be identified as that of Francesco Rolandello (1427-1490), a printer, scholar, and municipal chancellor in Treviso. The other two hands also support a localization of this books production in Northeastern Italy in the fifteenth century. The manuscript was in Venice by 1578, as attested by an owners 1578 inscription, written in Greek on f. 22. Remained in Italy in the seventeenth century, as attested by an Italian inscription on f. 28. Private European collection. CONDITION: Boards of binding worm-eaten, leather partially lost, especially on the spine and back cover, lower inner cornerpiece on back cover partly detached, leaves frayed, some water stains, but otherwise in good condition. Full description and photographs available (TM 792).
  • Bookseller Les Enluminures US (US)
  • Format/Binding Hardcover
  • Book Condition Used - Near Fine
  • Quantity Available 1
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Keywords RENAISSANCE MANUSCRIPT, ILLUMINATED HUMANIST ITALY, VENETO, TREVISO, FRANCESCO ROLANDELLO, GREEK, LATIN, ANCIENT GREECE, HOMER, LIBANIUS, BASIL OF CAESAREA, EDUCATION, SCHOOLBOOK, HUMANISM, RHETORIC, GREEK LITERATURE, CLASSICS