The First Editions of Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey in Greek – The Doheny Copy

HOMER

Opera [in Greek]. Ilias, Odyssea, Hymni, Batrachomyomachia, with the lives of Homer by Plutarch and Pseudo-Herodotus, and Dio Chrysostom’s Discourse 53, on Homer. Edited by Demetrius Chalcondyles.

Florence: [printer of Virgil C6061, probably Bartolommeo di Libri, and possibly Demetrius Damilas, for the brothers Bernardus and Nerius Nerlius, with the financial support of Giovanni Acciaiuoli], 9 December 1488, but not before 13 January, 1489.

Price: $275,000.00

Two median folio volumes: I. 33.5 x 21 cm. II. 32 x 21 cm. Vol. I 249 of 250 leaves (without the final blank); Vol. II. 189 (of 190) leaves (without the final blank). Collations: Vol. I: A-D8, E10 (A1r Bernardo Nerli's dedicatory letter to Piero de' Medici in Latin, A1v Demetrius Chalcondyles' preface in Greek, A3r Herodotus' Life of Homer, B1r Plutarch's Life of Homer, E7v Dio Chrysostomus' oration on Homer, E10 blank, lacking); A-Z8, ET8, cum8, Rx8 (Iliad). Vol. II: AA-ZZ8, ETET6 (AA1r Odyssey, XX2r Batrachomyomachia, XX6r Hymns to Apollo, ETET5v colophon, without the final blank leaf ETET6 blank).

EDITIONES PRINCIPES of the Iliad, Odyssey, Homeric Hymns, and the three lives of Homer. Only the pseudo-Homeric Batrachomyomachia was previously printed.

On the press, see Ridolfi. BMC assigned the printing to the Nerli brothers, and Proctor to Bartolommeo Di Libri, who Ridolfi argues only printed the dedication. The date derives from the dedication (13th January 1488/89); the Greek text has a colophon (f.439v) dated 9 Dec. 1488.

Types: text 121Gk (recast by Demetrius Damilas on a larger body, with the addition of a few sorts, from the same matrices as Paravisinus type 1:117Gk); Dedication 96R (Di Libri type 1); signatures 100R (printer of Benignus type 1). 39 lines. 2-10-line spaces for initials. Unrubricated. The earlier casting of the Homer type (Paravisinus type 1:117Gk) had been used by Damilas and the printer Dionysius Paravisinus to print Constantine Lascaris' “Erotemata” (Milan: 1476), the first book printed entirely in Greek.

Bound in early nineteenth-century russia gilt (nicely rebacked, some wear at corners), with marbled endpapers and edges. Vol. II is 1.5 cm. shorter; the bindings are of uniform height. Inner margin of first leaf strengthened, slight worming at beginning of Vol. II. Some minor foxing. In perfecting sheet O2.7 the type of the inner form was mis-imposed reversing the two text pages; in this copy MS notes in Greek draw attention to the error on the relevant pages and insert the first line of the correct text in each case.

Provenance: Dr. Charles Burney (1757-1817), classical scholar and historian of music, whose collection was sold after his death to: The British Museum (red library stamps IB 27657), sold as duplicate in 1931 to: Alice Millard, to: Estelle Doheny, her sale, Part I, lot 10, 1987.

The first printed edition of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the most influential works in western literature, and the Homeric Hymns. This monumental edition, edited by the Athenian scholar Demetrius Chalcondyles (1423-1511) and printed only thirty-five years after the fall of Constantinople, marks a crucial event in the transmission and preservation of the Greek literary heritage. The 1488 Homer was the first printed edition of any major work of Greek literature in its original language, the first substantial Greek book printed at Florence, and “the most ambitious Greek production until the Aldine Aristotle”(Proctor).

The editor, the Athenian émigré Demetrius Chalcondyles (Δημήτριος Χαλκοκονδύλης, 1423–1511) was a key figure in the promotion of Greek learning in Europe and a pioneer in the editing of Greek texts for print publication. His edition of Homer was the first of three major “editiones principes” he would see through the press -Isocrates followed at Milan in 1493; the Suda at Milan in 1499.

In 1449, Chalcondyles arrived in Rome, where he became the student of the Greek humanist Theodore Gaza (ca. 1398/1410/15–1475/6) and, later, the protégé of Cardinal Bessarion. Chalcondyles spent the rest of his life as a teacher of Greek and philosophy at Perugia, Padua, Rome, Milan, and Florence, where from 1475 to 1491 he held the chair of Greek at the Florentine Studio. It was during his tenure in Florence that Chalcondyles edited Homer for publication.

The Greek type, modelled on the calligraphy of the scribe Michael Apostolis (d. 1478), was cast by the Cretan scribe Demetrius Damilas from type that Damilas had used to print Constantine Lascaris’ "Erotemata" (Milan, 1476), the first book to be printed entirely in Greek. The colophon of the Homer specifically credits Damilas for his "labor and skill."

How and by whom the Homer was financed and printed is complicated and only partially resolved. The financing is not in dispute: The colophon names the Florentine brothers Bernardo and Nerio de' Nerli, former pupils of Chalcondyles, as the “noble and worthy men” ("eugenōn kai agathōn andrōn”) who bore the expense. Additionally the name Giovanni Acciaiuoli appears in the dedication as having provided “auxilium”(assistance).

Who actually printed the book is a separate question. Robert Proctor, in The Printing of Greek in the Fifteenth Century (1900), traced two Roman types used in the Homer — one for the dedication to Piero de' Medici, a larger one for the signatures — through other Florentine books to a single press, that of Bartolommeo di Libri, and concluded that "it is as certain as anything inferred from indirect evidence can be that the Homer was produced by the press of Bartolommeo di Libri." Proctor also set aside the natural assumption that Damilas himself operated the press: since Damilas had designed the type used in the 1476 Lascaris without being its printer, Proctor argued there was no reason to assume he ran the press for the Homer either. On Proctor's reading, the colophon's praise of Damilas' "labor and skill" most likely refers to his work recasting the type and cutting new sorts, not to operating the press. The BMC catalogue, by contrast, credits the Nerli brothers themselves as printers. Roberto Ridolfi, in La stampa in Firenze nel secolo XV (Florence: Olschki, 1958), p. 98, takes a third position, arguing that Bartolommeo di Libri printed only the dedication leaf. He assigned the actual presswork instead to an anonymous Florentine shop conventionally known as the "Printer of Virgilius" (Copinger 6061; Goff V183), active in Florence from about 1488 to 1490.

PMM (Printing and the Mind of Man) no 31. Paul Canart, “Démétrius Damilas, alias le «librarius Florentinus»," in “Rivista di studi bizantini e neoellenici”, n. 14–16 (1977–79), pp. 281–347; reprinted in Canart, “Études de paléographie et de codicologie”, I (Vatican City, 2008), pp. 451–522. David Speranzi, "La princeps di Omero per i Medici. Bibliologia e storia di un esemplare di dedica," in “Studi medievali e umanistici”, XVIII (CISU). G. Wilson, “From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance” (1992; 2nd ed. 2017).

ISTC ih00300000. HCR 8772. Pr 6194*. BMC VI 678 (IB 27657a-c). Oates 2348-52. Goff H-300. IGI 4795. CIBN h-173. Polain 1983. IDL 2350. Flodr 186.1. Doheny I, 10.