Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
ii + 143 + ii folios on paper, octavo, original quire markings printed throughout, complete, watermark, scale in a single circle topped by a six pointed start with a stylized A to the side, similar to Briquet 2595 (Vienna, 1528) and Briquet 2594 (Venice, 1500), (collation a8-s8 [-s8, last blank folio lacking]), printed in Aldine italic type (UCLA, I1= 80), Roman capitals used for titles and at the beginning of lines, 30 lines per page plus headline and quire mark line, justification 120 x 65 mm, 3-line ink initials in alternating blue and red throughout, 6-line illuminated initials with gold, red, green, and blue decoration, some bearing ink sprays and gold motifs (ff. c3r, f8v, o3r), and some faceted (ff. h3v, o3r) at ff. a2r, c3r, d5v, f8v, h3v, k1r, l1r, n2v, o3r, q5r, two contemporary hands added underlining and marginal comments sporadically throughout the book, slight staining and foxing on ff. a1 and s7, small tear at the top of f. i3, otherwise good condition. Eighteenth-century English, polished calf binding, spine gilded with floral tooling with maroon morocco label “HORIS”, joints quite rubbed, gold tooling along the top, side, and bottom edge of binding, bottom edge marked in ink “Horatius Tibullus.” Dimensions 165 x 95 mm.
The second of Aldus Manutius’s enchiridia, or handbooks, this edition of Horace is one of the earliest experiments in printing high quality, philologically accurate classical texts in a portable and easy-to-read format. Precious precursors to modern critical editions of classical works, these Aldine volumes prioritize clarity and portability. This one is further distinguished by its lavish, gilded capitals and border decoration of German origin, thus reinforcing the thesis that Aldine editions (like Gutenberg Bibles before them) circulated widely at the time of printing, receiving “finishing touches” touches elsewhere. Occasional underlining and marginal notes by two humanist hands also illuminate early readerly engagement with the works of Horace.
1. Printed in Venice in the workshop of Aldus Manutius in May 1501. Aldus first started printing Latin classical authors in italic font in octavo format with his edition of Virgil in April of 1501; this edition of Horace is the second classical author given this treatment. Aldus Manutius (c. 1449/1452 – 1515) began his career as a teacher of grammar but later became the foremost printer in Renaissance Venice. His editions of Greek, Latin, and Italian authors are highly esteemed for their typographical clarity and philological accuracy. Even within Aldus’s lifetime his editions were highly sought after for their inherent worth and as collectors’ items (which gave rise to many counterfeiters). Aldus was particularly successful with his libelli portatiles or enchiridia (portable or pocketbooks), like this book, which present philologically exact texts without a commentary or critical apparatus.
2. Shipped to Germany, the gilded initials and rubrication were added, perhaps before the volume was sold to a northern Renaissance humanist. Two other humanist cursive hands added marginal notes and underlining to the text, often simply noting the topics and personages in a couple of words.
3. A bookplate with a floral design and the Greek motto φρονεῖν εἰς τὸ σωφρονεῖν (Romans 12.3 “to think with sober judgement”). The bookplate belonged to an eighteenth-century owner, perhaps the same who supplied its current binding.
4. (?)Belonged to Rev. Francis Martin (1802-1868) a senior fellow and Bursar of Trinity College Cambridge. Although ordained a deacon and a priest, he never held a clerical post.
5. Belonged to Judy Martin (Rhodes) (d. 1940/1), perhaps a relative of Francis Martin. She died during the London Blitz according Shane Leslie, the next owner of the book who notes on the back flyleaf “Given me by Judy Rhodes (Martin) during the London Blitz, during which she died. R.I.P. I had the burial service over her at Golder’s Green.”
6. Belonged to Sir John Randolph Shane Leslie, 3rd Bt. (1885-1971), an Irish diplomat and man of letters. Leslie served as an agent for the American bookseller A.S.W. Rosenbach and was also a Rosenbach fellow of bibliography at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a prolific writer and was in contact with Winston Churchill and Irish diplomats but was unsuccessful at putting an end to the border in Ireland.
7. Purchased from Thomas Thorp, St. Albans (founded in 1883 by Thomas Thorp, the business closed in 2003) by T. Kimball Brooker. Thomas Kimball Brooker amassed one of the largest private collections of Aldine editions outside of Europe. Brooker joined the Grolier Club in 1962, served as president of the Association Internationale de Bibliophile from 2006 to 2013, and became an important American bibliophile and bibliographer. This book contains Brooker’s bookplate on the front pastedown.
f. a1v, [Dedicatory letter to Marino Sannuto], incipit, “ALDVS ROMANVS MARINO SANNVTO PATRITIO VENETO LEONARDI FILIO .S. … euoluenda futurum tibi existimamus. Vale”; f. a1r, titlepage
ff. a2r-h3r, Horace, Odes, incipit, “AD MOECENATEM ALIVM ALIO STVDIO TENERI…Progeniem Veneris canemus”;
ff. h3v-i6v, Horace, Epodes, incipit, “Ad Moecenatem euntem cum Augusto adversum Antonium et Cleopatram…Plorem artis in te nil habentis exitum”;
ff. i7r-i8r, Horace, Carmen saeculare, incipit, “Phoebe, sylvarumque potens Diana…Dicere laudes. FINIS”; f. i8v, blank
ff. k1r-k8v, Horace, De arte poetica [The Art of Poetry], incipit, “HVMANO CAPITI CERVICEM PICTOR EQVINAM…Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris irudo. FINIS”;
ff. l1r-o2v, Horace, Epistles, incipit, “AD MOECENATEM. PRIMA DICENTE MIHI SVMMA DICENDE CAMOENA…Rideat, et pulset lasciva decentius aetas. FINIS”;
ff. o3r-s7v, Horace, Satires, incipit, “SATYRA PRIMA. QVI FIT MOECENAS VT NEmo, quam sibi sorte…Canidia afflasset peior serpentibus aphris. FINIS”; f. s7v, colophon.
The text of Horace was transmitted through the Middle Ages in a fairly uncorrupted state. The oldest manuscripts split into two clear branches, labeled ? and ? by editors. The text printed by Aldus in this edition agrees with the ? branch of the tradition in the ordering of Horace’s work; notably the Ars poetica appears fourth in the collection. Closer examination, however, reveals that Aldus may have used an interpolated manuscript as his exemplar, or even edited the text himself. For example, at Carmen 1.8.2, the text in this edition reads (f. a6r): Hoc deos oro, a conflation of ?’s correct reading te deos oro, and an ancient interpolation in ? hoc deos uere. Likewise, the titles of the poems agree with neither ? or ?, e.g. at Carmen 2.16, the Aldine edition gives the title (f. d2v): “Ad Grosphum, nemini non ocium gratum esse, atque optabile” (To Grosphus, that leisure is welcome and preferable to everyone), compared with ?’s laconic “ad Pompeium Grosphum” and ?’s fuller “hypotetice Grospho, ostendens quam iocundum sit otium”. (See Tarrant, 1982, pp.182-85) The eclectic readings found in this edition deserve further study. Some of the idiosyncrasies in the titles of the poems may in fact derive from a copy of Horace copied by Bartolomeo Sanvito (1433-1511) for Bernardo Bembo (1433-1519) (now Cambridge, King’s College, MS 34), which has been suggested as the manuscript Aldus used for his text of Horace (see “Aldus Manutius,” 2009-2025).
Aldine octavos have a slightly slenderer aspect than other octavo books printed at the turn of the sixteenth century, with a ratio of 1.6:1, rather than the more standard 1.4:1 ratio found in other octavos. Paul Needham has described this new ratio as a “tangible symbol of how sixteenth-century books differ from their fifteenth-century predecessors” (Needham, 1994, p. 303). Aldus’s slim and neat edition of Horace would have differed markedly from earlier humanist editions of Horace that often contained dense layers of commentary around the text, e.g. Josse Bade’s (Jodocus Badius) 1500 edition of the Art of Poetry with copious commentary (Moss, 2007, pp. 67-69). The other symbol of the New Style inaugurated by Aldus’s press was the use of a new Italic type cut by Francesco Griffo (1450-1518), modeled on the hand of Bartolomeo Sanvito, and first used in Aldus’s edition of St Catherine of Siena’s Epistole in September 1500 (UCLA, no. 34). One of the last types that Griffo cut for Aldus, it achieved wide popularity in the octavo editions of Latin and vernacular classics printed by Aldus in the early sixteenth century and even inspired counterfeiters to copy the type as early as 1502 (Tinto, 1972, p. 31). (UCLA, no. 41; Aldo Manuzio Tipografo, no. 45; USTC 835851 does not include this copy; Adams, no. H854; Lugato, no. 43; Renouard, pp. 40-41/no. 4; Clemons, Aldus, nos. 27, 30).
Horace (65-8 BCE) was the son of a freedman, who rose to prominence as a Latin poet in the Late Republic and Early Empire. His poetic talents brought him into contact with Maecenas, to whom Horace dedicates much of his poetry, and the Emperor Augustus. While both patrons attempted to offer Horace high-ranking positions and lavish gifts, he refused them, preferring a quieter and more rural existence on his Sabine farm. Horace’s first poems, the Epodes, introduced the Roman literary public to the metrical forms and tone of Early Greek iambics, which delight in invective, mockery, and scorn. At around the same time, he composed his Satires in two books, which encourage readers to reject the absurd vices lampooned in the poems and live a more virtuous life. In the Odes, Horace imports lyric meters used by Alcaeus, Sappho, and Pindar and adapts them to contemporary themes. The Odes are the most metrically complicated of Horace’s poetry, the most linguistically difficult, and gently subvert literary norms expected in lyric poetry. Horace’s last poems were his two books of Epistles, letters written to friends full of philosophical and moral reflections, and the Art of Poetry, a long verse letter sent to the Pisones outlining how poetry should be written. Throughout the Middle Ages, the Epistles (with the Art of Poetry)and Satires were the most frequently read of Horace’s works, but after Petrarch imitated Horace’s Odes in Italian accentual meter in his Sonnets, the influence of the Odes on Italian literary culture grew steadily. (Syndikus, 1999, pp. 724-26)
This Aldine edition of Horace is remarkable for handsome dimensions and clean layout of text on the page. Aldus writes to his dedicatee Marin Sanudo (1466-1536) that he is sending the book to him “so it may attract you to read it by its modest size, when you can take break from official duties or composing your history of Venice” (f. a1v, “quo te sua paruitate ad se legendum, cum uel a muneribus publicis, uel a Venetarum rerum componenda historia cessare potes, inuitet"). The radically new, modified octavo size must have impressed scholars and bibliophiles who could access Horace “printed in a very small form” (f. a1v, “breuissima forma excusos”).
Adams, H.M. Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501-1600 in Cambridge Libraries, 2 vol., Cambridge, 1967.
Bigliazzi, Luciana, Angela Dillon Bussi, Giancarlo Savino, Piero Scapecchi, eds. Aldo Manuzio tipografo, 1494-1515, Firenze, 1994.
Burnhill, Peter. Type Spaces: In-House Norms in the Typography of Aldus Manutius, London, 2003.
Clemons, G. Scott and H. George Fletcher. Aldus Manutius: A Legacy more Lasting than Bronze, New York, 2015.
Clemons, G. Scott. “Aldine Tributaries: Collecting Aldus Manutius in the Twenty-First Century,” in The Afterlife of Aldus: Posthumous Fame, Collectors and the Book Trade, ed. Jill Kraye and Paolo Sachet, London, 2018, pp. 171-79.
Dazzi, Manlio. Aldo Manuzio e il Dialogo Veneziano di Erasmo, Vicenza, 1969.
de la Mare, A.C. and Laura Nuvoloni. Bartolomeo Sanvito: The Life and Work of a Renaissance Scribe, Paris, 2009.
Horace. Opera, ed. F. Klingner, Leipzig, 1982.
Kallendorf, Craig W. and Maria X. Wells. Aldine Press Books at the Harry Ransom Center The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, 1998.
Lowry, Martin. The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice, Ithaca, 1979.
Lugato, Elisabetta. “Catalogo,” in Aldo Manuzio e l’ambiente veneziano 1494-1515, ed. Susy Marcon and Marino Zorzi, Venice, 1994, pp. 207-48.
Moss, Ann. “Horace in the Sixteenth Century: Commentators into Critics,” in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, vol. 3, The Renaissance, ed. Glyn P. Norton, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 66-76.
Needham, Paul. “Aldus Manutius Paper Stocks: The Evidence of Two Uncut Books,” The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 55.2 (1994): pp. 287-307.
Renouard, Antoine-Augustin. Annales de l’Imperimerie des Alde, ou Histoire des trois Manuce et de leurs Éditions, Tome I, Paris, 1803.
Syndikus, Hans Peter. “Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus),” in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, 3rd ed., Oxford, 1999, pp. 724-27.
Tarrant, R.J. “Horace,” in Texts and Transmission, ed. L.D. Reynolds, Oxford, 1983,pp. 182-86.
Tinto, Alberto. Il Corsivo nella Tipographia del Cinquecento dai Caratteri Italiani ai Modelli Germanici e Francesi, Milan, 1972.
UCLA = The Aldine Press: Catalogue of the Ahmanson-Murphy Collection of Books by or relating to the Press in the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles Incorporating Works Recorded Elsewhere, Berkeley, 2001.
“Aldus Manutius: A Humanist Printer for Humanist Readers,” Cambridge University Library Exhibition, 2009-2025
https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/manutius/case/introduction/
EDIT16, CNCE 22672
https://edit16.iccu.sbn.it/titolo/CNCE022672
“Francis Martin,” Trinity College Chapel
http://trinitycollegechapel.com/about/memorials/brasses/martin/
“Leslie, John Randolph,” Dictionary of Irish Biography
https://www.dib.ie/biography/leslie-john-randolph-shane-a4805
Melchiorre, Matteo. “Sanudo, Marino il Giovane,” Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 2017.
https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/marino-marin-il-giovane-sanudo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/
Universal Short Title Catalogue, no. 835851
https://www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/835851
TM 1399
