According to Claudin this is the twentieth book printed at the Sorbonne press. To the five copies known to him this adds a sixth.
Bound with No. 19. De duobus amantibus.
21. PLATO. Epistolae. [Paris, Michael Friburger, Ulric Gering and Martin Crantz, 1472.]
Fol. 1a: Ad prudentem et magnificum uirum Cosmam de medicis florentinum, Leonardi Aretini clarissimi oratoris, in epistolas platonis quas ex græcis latinas fecit! praefatio; Fol. 52a, Colophon: FINIS.
Discite rectores diuinitus, ore platonis!
Quid uos, quid ciues reddat in urbe bonos;
Quarto. Quires [1-410, 58, 62, 72], 52 leaves, 23 lines to the page, roman letter, without signatures, catchwords, pagination, place, printer's name or date. Three- to five-line spaces left for capitals. The first initial supplied in blue and red, other capitals in blue and red alternately. Initial strokes in yellow. Claudia XIV. Philippe VII. Crevenna 1523. Hain 13066.
Leonardo Bruni, often called Leonardo Aretini from his birthplace Arezzo, translated five of the dialogues of Plato in addition to the letters.
The first notice of this edition is found in the Catalogue Bolongaro-Crevenna (Amst., 1789), where it is described as containing 52 printed leaves. It appears from the price-list printed after the sale in 1790 that it had not been sold, but was "retenu, faute de commissions ou de concurrence," and was still obtainable at the price of 15 florins. No trace of it has since been found and Panzer and Hain were able only to copy the catalogue description. Philippe (1885) described Heynlin's copy, which is preserved in the library of the University of Basel, as consisting of one first blank leaf, forty-nine printed leaves and two blank leaves at the end. Claudin (1898), with a second copy discovered meantime in the Bibliothèque d'Angers at his command, finds one first blank and forty-nine printed leaves, and remarks that the two blank leaves placed by Philippe at the beginning [should be end] are only independent fly-leaves. Our copy has fifty-two printed leaves and no blanks and no occasion for them, since the printed leaves, of themselves, form complete quires. Claudin's collation, which gives both the quires and a register of the first words of each quire, shows that both his copies lack the sixth quire of our copy, composed like the seventh of only two leaves and beginning "sibus interdixistis." There is moreover still unexplained and not easily explainable in the descriptions of both the Basel and Angers copies the presence of a troublesome first blank leaf and the absence of another leaf of text, in addition to the lacking sixth quire. It follows that, at least until the Crevenna copy, which appears to have been in agreement with ours, comes to light again, this must remain the only complete copy known.
Bound with Nos. 19 and 20, from the same press.
22. MAGNI, Jacobus [Jacques Le Grand]. Sophologium. Paris, Martin Crantz, Ulric Gering and Michael Friburger, 1 June, 1477.