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Editio princeps, assuring the history of Greek drama: Thomas More made his hero Raphael to give a copy to the Utopians!

EURIPIDES.
[Greek text] Tragoediae septendecim [=18], ex quibus quaedam habent commentaria. & sunt hae. Hecuba Orestes Phoenissae Medea Hippolytus Alcestis Andromache Supplices Iphigenia in Aulide Iphigeniae in Tauris Rhesus Troades Bacchae Cyclops Heraclide Helena Ion.

With the famous printer's device of Aldus on the last leaf of both volumes, printed throughout in Aldus' beautiful Greek characters.

With the famous printer's device of Aldus on the last leaf of both volumes, printed throughout in Aldus' beautiful Greek characters.

With the famous printer's device of Aldus on the last leaf of both volumes, printed throughout in Aldus' beautiful Greek characters.

With the famous printer's device of Aldus on the last leaf of both volumes, printed throughout in Aldus' beautiful Greek characters.



Venice, Aldus Manutius, February 1503. 2 volumes. 8vo. Limp vellum: leaves from a sixteenth-century Spanish manuscript with a large decorated initial painted in blue, red and gold with white pen flourishes on the front cover of the first volume, blue painted edges. With the famous printer's device of Aldus on the last leaf of both volumes, printed throughout in Aldus' beautiful Greek characters. [268]; [190] ll.

The"rare" (Renouard) and "exceptionally important" (Lowry) editio princeps of the eighteen plays of Euripides. Euripides (ca. 480-406 BC) was the last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-two plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias. Eighteen of Euripides' plays have survived complete. It is now widely believed that what was thought to be a nineteenth, Rhesus, was probably not by Euripides. Fragments, some of them substantial, of most of the other plays also survive. More of his plays have survived than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because of the chance preservation of a manuscript that was probably part of a complete collection of his works in alphabetical order.
Euripides is known primarily for having reshaped the formal structure of traditional Attic tragedy by showing strong women characters and smart slaves, and by satirizing many heroes of Greek mythology. His plays seem modern by comparison with those of his contemporaries, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown to Greek audiences.
This very first edition ever of his plays certainly assured the survival of the greater part of Greek history and drama. Only four tragedies had been printed previously: in 1496, in Florence by J. Lascaris.
In his preface to Demetrius Chalcondylas on the verso of the title of vol. 1, Aldus surprisingly mentions the number of copies printed of his classical 8vo editions: he prints normally ca. 1000 copies! One of these copies was undoubtedly also among the very suggestive collection of Greeks books which Thomas More made his hero Raphael give to the Utopians: Plato Aristotle, Theophrastus, Plutarch, Homer, Aristophanes, Sophocles and Euripides; all Aldine editions (Lowry, p. 262).
This edition contains the plays in the following order: Hecuba (c. 424 BC), Orestes (408 BC), Phoenician Women (c. 410 BC), Medea (431 BC), Hippolytus (428 BC), Alcestis (438 BC), Andromache (c. 425 BC), The Suppliants (c. 423 BC), Iphigeneia at Aulis (405 BC), Iphigeneia in Tauris (c. 414 BC), the spurious Rhesus, Trojan Women (415 BC), Bacchae, the Satyr play Cyclops, Heracleidae (c. 430 BC), Helen (412 BC), Ion (c. 414 BC), and, although not mentioned on the title-page, added at the end of volume 2 the Hercules furens. Not included in this edition was Electra.

Quire NN misbound; some occasional water stains, a few single wormholes skilfully mended. Good set with wide margins containing 16th-century scholarly Greek annotations on the first ca. 100 ll.
Adams E-1030; Ahmanson-Murphy 55/1 & 55/2; Hoffmann II, 68; Renouard, p. 43, nr. 10; UCLA 69;  STC Italian p. 239; cf. Lowry, The world of Aldus Manutius, p. 142, 145, 151, 262.

Related Subjects: 16th Century  Aldus Manutius  Greek & Latin  Literary History, Classics  Printing [Greek]  Venice 

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