Information
Venice, Aldo Manuzio, 1499. In 4°. Part II only (of 2) which includes Basilius Magnus, Libanius, Chion, Aeschines, Isocrates, Phalaris, Pythagoras, Brutus, Apollonius Tyaneus, Julianus imperator, and Lex de archiatris, dedication by Aldus to Antonio Cortesi Urceo known as Codro, impressed text in the elegant Greek Aldino typeface, eighteenth-century binding in full bazzana and gold decorations on the spine, red and green sprayed cuts.
Specialist Notes
Musuro gathered 35 authors in his large collection, ranging from Plato, Aristotle, Isocrates and Aeschines to later authors such as Alexander the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Saint Basil and Procopius of Gaza; other letters are spurious and attributed, among others, to Hippocrates and Euripides. Letter writing, associated with rhetoric, was an important element in liberal arts education, and letter compendiums circulated as basic models. Aldine's Epistolae Graecae "were not replaced by an equally useful collection until 1873, the date of R. Hercher's Epistolographi graeci" (Wilson, Byzantium to Italy , p.150).
Goff E64; HC 6659*; BMC V 560; GW 9367; IGI 3707.