Crastone, Dictionarium graecum, Venice, Aldus, 1524, old limp vellum

Crastone, Giovanni. Dictionarium Graecum cum interpretatione Latina, omnium, quae hactenus impressa sunt, copiosissimom. Collectio dictionum, quae differunt significatu, per ordine literarum… [Greek and Latin]. (Venice: in the house of Aldo and Andrea Torresano, December 1524)

Second Aldine edition of Crastone's dictionary, enlarged by Gian Francesco Torresano, who details in his preface the additions made to this edition and disparages the other recent editions printed in Basel and Paris.

Folio (298 x 202 mm). Greek and roman type, 56 lines, double column. collation: a-s⁸ t⁴ A-Q⁸ R⁶ S-X⁸: 314 leaves. Woodcut Aldine device on title-page and final verso (otherwise blank), a few early annotations adding or expanding entries. (Short inscription erased from title-page causing a small hole, slight damp-staining at end.)

binding: Sixteenth-century limp vellum with two pairs of alum-tawed ties (304 x 230 mm), strip from a medieval manuscript used as spine liner. (Binding cockled and slightly soiled, spine torn at foot, two front endpapers torn away.)

provenance: Replica Shoes 's London, 17 November 2005, lot 12; references: UCLA 228; Cataldi Palau 94; Edit16 13682; Renouard 99/3; Botley, Learning Greek in Western Europe 1396-1529, Appendix 2:30