Aeschyli Tragoediae VII

Geneva, Henri Estienne, 1557.

Quarto, (4) leaves, 395 pp. Red morocco, gilt fillets on covers, spine with raised bands and gilt decoration, gilt fillet on edges, gilt edges. 18^th-century binding attributed to Roger Payne.

243 x 166 mm.

Aeschylus. Aeschyli Tragoediae VII.

First complete edition of Agamemnon, whose text had previously been missing two-thirds, and the first definitive complete edition of the tragedies of Aeschylus in Greek.

“Rare. Important edition due to the manuscripts consulted and the notes of the famous Henri Estienne. It deserves to be called the first edition, since the text of the Agamemnon is here complete for the first time” (Graesse).

Brunet, I, 78; Adams, A265; Moeckli, 32; Schreiber, 145; Renouard, 116, no. 15; Index Aureliensis, *100.917; Moeckli, 32; Hoffmann, I, 34-35.

“The true first complete edition” (Brunet).

“This edition is rare and dear” (Dibdin).

This editio princeps, with its very beautiful typography, is of course a major work as it comes from the true creator of tragedy; a straightforward tragedy, without intrigue, where interest arises from the depiction of emotions and from the dramatic progression brought by the arrival of a messenger or an actor. Aeschylus brilliantly stages, with great dramatic effect, this debate so characteristic of the Greek hero between free will and the hidden but overwhelming presence of Fate. The great compositions best reveal the grandeur of Aeschylus’ genius, who, discovering the existence of a divine justice, advocates a rule of moderation for mankind, and whose powerful imagination lends reality a superhuman grandeur in songs of irresistible pathos.

The previous incomplete editions by Aldus, Robortel, and Turnèbe were revised by Henri II Estienne (1531–1598), thanks to verses found in the Laurentian codex F. in the library of Pope Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) by the learned Hellenist Pietro Vettori (1499–1585), who completed them using other manuscripts, with the help of his students Bartolomeo Barbadoro and Girolamo Maeus. The famous Florentine humanist Vettori, professor of Greek and Latin eloquence and member of the Florence Senate, sent Estienne his discoveries for publication, accompanied by his personal notes. Estienne established his edition by consulting about fifteen manuscripts of Aeschylus kept in Rome and Naples, to which he added his own observations in Latin, enhanced by scholarly notes (pp. 354–395), which delayed the publication and strained relations between the two men.

Henri Estienne was then exiled with his family in Geneva, due to his persecution by Sorbonne theologians for the Latin and Greek Bibles printed by his father, Robert. The latter, appointed royal printer for Greek by Francis I^st in 1545, was entrusted with the matrices of the so-called “Grecs du roi” Greek type, engraved by Claude Garamond based on models supplied by the royal calligrapher Ange Vergèce. It was with the matrices taken to Geneva in his exile that Henri Estienne printed this edition.

Aeschylus was born in Eleusis in 525 BC. In Aristophanes’ Frogs there is a lively debate: which of Aeschylus or Euripides deserves first place, and it ends in favor of the former.

“It is not easy to define in a few words the genius of Aeschylus. Creator of tragedy, he is also its most illustrious representative, above Sophocles and Euripides. Powerful in his conceptions, bold in his language, overflowing with intense emotion, and always reinventing himself, Aeschylus is truly the Dionysian lord; Nietzsche, many centuries later, will give him no other name. This unique poet in the history of drama, who deserves to be placed next to Shakespeare, could not be more aptly described” (Umberto Albini).

The collection includes the tragedies of Aeschylus: The Suppliants, The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, as well as the Oresteia.

The printing, in so-called “Grecs du roi” typefaces, uses two different sizes.

Very fine copy rubricated in red, bound in red morocco in the 18^th century by Roger Payne, from the O’Brien library with its ex-libris dated 1899.