Φαλάριδος ἐπιστολαὶ τυράννου Ἀκραγαντινωñν [Letters of Phalaris, tyrant of Acragas]

Small 4to. ff. [58]. Signatures: 2α-2δ⁸ 2ε⁴ 2ζ⁸ 2η⁴ 2θ¹⁰. Nineteenth-century olive cross-grain morocco, gilt, probably by Charles Lewis (1786-1836). Covers within gilt multiple fillet border, smooth flat spine, richly gilt tooled, title and imprint lettered vertically in gilt, cover edges gilt tooled, inner dentelles, gilt edges. Imprint from colophon; title from head of 2a2. Printer’s device in the form of a pine cone on verso of final leaf. Blank spaces for capitals with printed guide letters. Text in Greek; colophon and dedicatory epistle to Pietro Contarino in Latin.

The celebrated and rare editio princeps of the moral/philosophical letters once ascribed to Phalaris, the sixth century BC tyrant of Acragas (now Agrigento, in Sicily), with the additional text of letters by the first-century Neopythagorean Apollonius of Tyana, and by pseudo-Brutus (Marcus Junius), from the first century BC collection of Mithridates VI, King of Pontus. The authenticity of the ‘Phalaris’ text, here edited by Bartholomaeus Pelusius Justinopolitanus, was demolished by Richard Bentley in his Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris (1697 (see Bib# 1226831/Fr #39 in this collection), enlarged 1698) which prompted the notorious and voluminous ‘Battle of the Books’ (1697-1705) between Bentley and his academic and aristocratic opponents. Bentley demonstrated from anachronistic details and linguistic/dialectic evidence that the composition of the letters must date from the second century AD, and attributed the work to a post-Christian sophist or rhetorician, possibly Adrianus of Tyre (d. 192). Although at least 45 incunabular editions, in Latin and Italian, preceded this Greek editio princeps, Bentley’s exposure depended above all on the Greek text.

The present work, which can be considered a forgery, pseudepigrapha, or ‘fictitious epistolography,’ was edited by Bartholomaeus Pelusius Justinopolitanus and Gabriel Bracius de Brisighella, and produced at Venice by a partnership of the printer Benedictus Mangius, the punch-cutter Johannes Bissolus – who had previously worked for Aldus Manutius, as the others may have done – and the two editors. On 7 March 1498, Bracius obtained a ten-year privilege from the Signoria for the printing of the Phalaris and three other Greek texts, only one of which (Aesop’s Vita) ever appeared, which described the printing as ‘cum bellissima e nova invenzione [of types]’. But apparently Aldus, who regarded the new Greek type to be a palpable imitation of his own second Greek font, which was itself protected by a privilege, took some kind of action against the rival partnership, which ended its brief tenure in Venice (Nicolas Barker, Aldus Manutius and the Development of Greek Script & Type. New York 1992, p. 65, defends the partnership’s typeface as in fact entirely ‘new’, fine and elaborate). The editors Pelusius and Bracius are not heard from again, and the craftsmen moved to Milan, where they employed the same type in the massive editio princeps of Suidas by November of the following year. Meanwhile, Aldus coolly appropriated the text of Phalaris, reprinting it literatim in his two-volume ‘Epistolae diversorum philosophorum, oratorum, rhetorum’ of 1499 (Bib# 4911590/Fr# 16 in this collection).

From the famous library of Beriah Botfield (1807-1863), later by his gift to the Thynnes (Marquesses of Bath) at Longleat, and among the books disposed of at Christies on 17 June 2002, lot 54, purchased by Pregliasco, for Livio Ambrogio.

See F. R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census. Millwood (N.Y.), 1973, P-545; British Museum, Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum, vol. v, p. 578; M. Flodr, Incunabula classicorum : Wiegendrucke der griechischen und rom̈ischen Literatur, Phalaris 1; Indice generale degli incunaboli delle biblioteche d’Italia. Compilato da T.M. Guarnaschelli e E. Valenziani [et al.]. 6 vols. Roma, 1943-81, (IGI) 7681; Copinger, W.A. Supplement to Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum. Part I. London, 1895, (HC) 12871.

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