Panzer was disposed to identify the peculiar roman type of these volumes with that used by the fourth printer of Venice, Clemente of Padua, between whom and Zarotto of Milan, Hain was later in doubt. But Proctor was convinced that the small group of books to which these belong, nearly all of them connected in some way with Florence, were the productions of the first, so far unidentified, press of that city. The date they bear (1471) places them among the earliest books printed in the Italian language. Witness the following first editions: Petrarch's Canzoniere, 1470; Il Decamerone, 1471; La Divina Commedia, 1472.
The present copy, bound in blue morocco, with the crest of the Marquis of Blandford on side, was sold in his (White Knights) sale in 1819 for £2. Leaf 9 1/4 × 6 3/4 in.
From the Syston Park sale, December, 1884, with book-plate and the monogram (J.H.T.) of Sir John Hayford Thorold.
17. AESOPUS. Vita et fabulae græce. Vita et fabulae latine. Fabulae selectae græce et latine. [Milan], Bonus Accursius, c. 1480.
Part I. Fol. 1a: Bonus Accursius Pisanus doctissimo sapientissimo ducali quæstori Iohanni Francisco turriano salutem plurimam dicit. Fol. 2a: ἈΙΣΩΠΟΥ ΒΙΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΜΥΘΟΠΟΙΟΥ ΜΑΞΙΜΩ ΤΩ ΠΛΑΝΟΥΔΗ ΣΥΓΓΡΑΦΕΙΣ. Fol. 33a: ἈΙΣΩΠΟΥ ΜΥΘΟΙ. Fol. 70a: Τέλος τὣν τοὓ Ἀισώπου Μύθων. Part II. Fol. 1a: Vita Aesopi fabulatoris clarissimi e græco latina per Rynucium facta ad Reuerendissimum Patrem Dominum Antonium tituli Sancti Chrysogoni Presbyterum Cardinalem et primo prohoemium. Fol. 32b: FINIS. Fol. 33a: Argumentum fabularum Aesopi e græco in latinum. Fol. 59b: Finis. Vita Aesopi per Rynucium thettalum traducta. Verum quoniam ab eo non nulla fuerunt praetetermissa (sic): fortassis quia græcus eius codex esset minus emendatus: Ego Bonus accursius Pisanus: eadem in ea omnia correxi; et emendaui. Fol. 60, blank. Part III. Fol. 1a, blank. Fol. 1b: Bonus Accursius Pisanus doctissimo ac sapientissimo ducali Quæstori Iohanni francisco Turriano salutem plurimam dicit. Fol. 2a, col. 1: ΜΥΘΟΙ ἈΙΣΩΠΟΥ, col. 2: Fabulae Aesopi. Fol. 38a, col. 1: ΤΕΛΟΣ ΤΩΝ ΤΟΥ ἈΙΣΩΠΟΥ ΜΥΘΩΝ. Col. 2: FINIS AESOPI FABVLARVM. Bonus Accursius pisanus impressit: qui non doctorum hominum sed rudium ac puerorum gratia hunc laborem suscepit.
Quarto. Pt. I, sign. [A-H8, I6] not printed, but stamped irregularly on the extreme lower margin and partially cut away in the binding, 70 leaves. Pt. II, sign, a-g8, and four unsigned leaves at the end, 60 leaves. Pt. III, sign. a-b8, C-D8, E6, 38 leaves, the Greek text and the word-for-word Latin translation in two parallel columns. Both the Greek and the Latin have 25 lines to the page or column. Two- to five-line spaces for capitals, with guide-letters, in both texts, but no rubrication. Two pinholes. Hain *265+272. Pellechet 185+192. Proctor, Printing of Greek in the 15th cent., p. 60.
This is the first printed edition of any of the Greek classics, and the third book printed entirely in Greek, or in Greek with a Latin translation; the first being the Grammar of Lascaris, Milan, 1476, and the second the Lexicon of Crastonus not later than 1478. All three were printed with the same font of Greek type made by, or under the supervision of, Demetrius Damilas, the son of Milanese parents settled in Crete. Bonus Accursius was rather the publisher than the actual printer, who in the case of the Lascaris was Dionysius Paravisinus, and in the case of the Crastonus and the Aesop, probably the brothers de Honate, who at that date were the possessors of the peculiar roman type used in the Latin translations. After the Aesop this particular font of Greek type next appeared in the first edition of Homer, printed at Florence in 1488 by Bartolommeo di Libri, and in three of his subsequent books, once at Rome early in the 16th century, after which it disappears altogether.
In the present edition the Fabulae græce number 147, the Fabulae latine 100, the Fabulae selectae 62. The translator, Rinuccio d'Arezzo, who dedicates his work to Cardinal Antonio Cerdano, tells him in closing that he sends all that have come into his hands, though probably not all that Aesop wrote, since while they stand in alphabetical order, some letters are wanting and others have not their full quota. Not all copies have all the three parts, nor are they always bound in the same order. The present copy, though in all respects complete, is bound irregularly, as follows: 1. Fabulae selectae. 2. Fabulae græce. 3. Vita Aesopi græce. 4. Vita et fabulae latine. On the verso of the last blank leaf is written in an early hand "olim fuit Reverendissimi magistri georgii de casali."