TEACHING GREEK THROUGH LATIN
BOLZANIO, Urbano or URBANUS BELLUNENSIS.
Institutionum in linguam Graecam grammaticarum, libri duo …
Basel, Johann Walder, September 1535.
Tall 4to, pp. [ii], 472, [6]; printed in Greek and roman types, woodcut devices to title and to final verso, decorated and historiated woodcut initials; a few very light spots, small area of marginal staining in last few leaves; a very good, clean copy in contemporary Swiss calf, roll-tooled in blind to a panel design, manuscript title to spine; skilful restorations to endcaps, joints, and corners, a few minor scuffs and stains to boards; faded inscriptions to title, final verso, and pastedowns, contemporary purchase inscription to rear pastedown ‘emi 15 [?]’ followed by a few faded words, some contemporary marginalia to pp. 14–17, modern gilt black morocco bookplate to front pastedown, modern collector’s bookplate.
Basel edition of this popular grammar commissioned and first published by Aldus in 1497. Bolzanio’s full exploration of the Greek language was the first book in which the principles of Greek grammar were explained in Latin – after the publication of the all-Greek grammar of Constantinus Lascaris. It was a decisive editorial step, which led to this book’s huge contribution to the spread of Greek studies in Europe, well beyond the confines of the small group of readers who were already somewhat versed in the language. The publication clearly met a widely felt need: it immediately became difficult to get hold of copies (as attested in a letter from Erasmus, cited by Renouard, in which the humanist laments being unable to obtain the book) and that first edition is still rare on the market. Bolzanio, like Pietro Bembo and Giorgio Valla, had been among the enthusiastic young scholars who had travelled to Messina in Sicily to hear the Greek lessons which Lascaris gave there for decades, until his death, in 1501.
Zurich-born typographer Johann Walder had, in 1532, married the widow of Valentin Curio and taken over the printing workshop. Walder’s edition of Bolzanio’s grammar was based, in the main, on the text printed by Curio in 1524 – with the omission of two introductory addresses and a more rigorously selective approach to the choice of supporting texts. A commercial success, it was then reprinted in 1539.
USTC 704436; VD 16 B 6530; Brunet V, col. 1012; Graesse VII, p. 228. See Botley 145 (1524).
