Early Basel edition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the most widely read classical texts of the sixteenth century. Written by the great poet Homer (8th century BCE), the two epic poems tell the story of the siege of Troy and Odysseus' long journey home after the fall of Troy. The present work contains the Iliad in the first part and the Odyssey in the second. Also included are the Batrachomyomachia (a parody of the Iliad), the Homeric Hymns, De Homeri vita by Plutarch, and an epigram by Heinrich Pantaleon (1522-1595), professor of physics, medicine and dialectics at the University of Basel. The text is printed in two columns, with the Ancient Greek and Latin texts in parallel.
The Iliad and the Odyssey were first printed in 1488 and 1489 in Florence and appeared in numerous editions during the sixteenth century. The present edition, however, is the first published by Nicolaus Bryling and one of the first to present the Greek and Latin texts in parallel columns. It was reissued with a new title page and preface in 1553.
The pigskin is somewhat rubbed and soiled, with a vertical tear in the middle of the front board. A part of the lower margin of the title page has been restored, the work is slightly soiled and water stained throughout, mostly in the margins, worm holes in the lower margin of the final 120 pages, lacking the final blank, leaf p3 and p4 in the second part have been switched with leaf q3 and q4. Otherwise in good condition. Adams H-757; BMC German, p. 413; not in Dibdin; Machiels.