Crastone, Dictionarium graecum, Venice, Aldus, 1497, later pigskin, from the Buxheim Charterhouse

Crastone, Giovanni. Dictionarium graecum copiosissimum secundum ordinem alphabeti cum interpretatione latina. Cyrilli opusculum de dictionibus, quae variato accentu mutant significatum secundum ordinem alphabeti cum interpretatione latina. Ammonius de differentia dictionum per literarum ordinem. Vetus instructio & denominationes praefectorum militum. Significata tou ē. Significata tou ōs. Index oppido quam copiosus, docens latinas dictiones ferè omneis graece dicere & multas etiam multis modis [Greek and Latin]. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, December 1497

First Aldine edition (see lot 411 for the second edition) of Crastone's Greek-Latin and Latin-Greek lexica, printed together here for the first time, along with other lexical tracts which Aldo considered helpful to include. The final section contains an index of Latin words with the page and line number, for which readers had to number the leaves themselves, as instructed by Aldo in the "ad lectorem" at the start of this index.

Super-Chancery folio (297 x 207mm.). Greek and roman types, 42 lines, double column. collation: a-i κ⁸ l¹⁰ A-K⁸ L¹⁰ M⁸ N¹⁰ O p-r⁸ s⁶ t⁸: 244 leaves. One woodcut initial on O1, initial spaces with printed guides, traces of manuscript foliation, partly trimmed. (Inscriptions on title-page erased resulting in a few small holes, some small wormholes at end, a few small ink stains on g8, other occasional light staining.)

binding: Later sixteenth-century German blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards [Einbanddatenbank w004321, Buxheim, sixteenth century] (324 x 221 mm), two clasps, later blue edges and endpapers. (Lacking one catch, some wormholes in binding, head of spine slightly torn.)

provenance: Charterhouse of Buxheim, inscription and ink stamp on title-page (partly erased) — [dissolved in 1803 and their library acquired by Johann Friedrich, Graf von Ostein (1735-1809), then inherited by Hugo Phillipp, Graf Waldbott von Bassenheim (1820-1895), but this work not found in the sale catalogue from Förster in Munich in 1883, nor in the Rosenthal catalogues of 1884, which contained numerous Buxheim items] — Charles W. Clark (1871-1933, The Library of Charles W. Clark, San Francisco, 1916, II, p.316). acquisition: Purchased from John Fleming, New York, 1969. references: UCLA 16; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 18; BMC v 558; Goff C960; GW 7814; ISTC ic00960000; Renouard 13/7; Botley, Learning Greek in Western Europe 1396-1529, Appendix 2:6