Pindarou, Olympia. Pythia. Nemea. Isthmia. Meta oxegeseos palaias panu ophelemou, kai scholion homoion
THE CONYBEARE-ORMEROD-GAISFORD COPY OF
"THE MOST IMPORTANT PINDAR EDITION EVER"
Pindar, ed. Zacharias Kallierges. Πινδαρου, Ολυμπια. Πυθια. Νεμεα. Ισθμια. Μετὰ ὀξηγήσεως παλαιᾶς πανὺ ὠφελέμου, καὶ σχολίων ὁμοίων. [Pindarou, Olympia. Pythia. Nemea. Isthmia. Meta oxēgēseōs palaias panu ōphelemou, kai scholiōn homoiōn.] Rome: Zacharias Kallierges, 13 August 1515. Editio princeps of the scholia.
Quarto in 8s (8 3/8” x 5 3/4”, 212mm x 147mm): 2 binder’s blanks, α4 β-θ8 ι6 (ι6 blank) κ-μ8 ν-ξ6 Α-Η8 Θ10(Θ10 blank) Ι-Ρ8, 2 binder’s blanks [$4 signed; +Θ5; –Α1, Α2; β3 mis-signed “Θ ιιι” corrected in manuscript, θ4 mis-signed as “η ιιιι”, A8 mis-signed as “A ιι”, N3 mis-signed as “N ι ” with the two additional iotas supplied in manuscript]. 240 leaves. Section titles to the Olympian (β1r) and Pythian (A3r) odes printed in red and black.
Bound in later (ca. 1800?) calf, panelled in blind with acorn cornerpieces. On the spine, five raised bands. Title and author gilt to black calf in the second panel, “editio/princeps” gilt to black calf at the tail. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block speckled red.
Some wear to the extremities, with some small losses to the head and tail. Tiny wormtrails to the lower edge of the front paste-down and initial blanks. Dampstain to the upper quarter of the text-block, concentrated at the front and fading almost to invisibility at the rear. Old repairs to the verso of the α1 (title-leaf), not affecting the text. Armorial bookplate of Thomas Gaisford as Dean of Christ Church to the front paste-down. Ownership signature of J.J. Conybeare at Christ Church dated 1802 also to the front paste-down, partially obliterated. With an ink description (“Editio princeps, good scholia”), pricing and collation statement in an early hand (Ormerod’s?) to the recto of the front free end-paper. Ink-stamp of “G.W. Ormerod/B.N. Coll.” to the recto of the front free end-paper, along with an ink description (“Editio princeps, good scholia”), pricing and collation statement in an early hand (Ormerod’s?). Ownership signature of Gaisford at Christ Church to the upper edge of the title-page, and of “Juliani Roberti Parisiensia” in a XVIc scholastic hand to the lower edge.
Writing in the early years of the fifth century BC, Pindar is the lyric poet — an author of short verse in a variety of meters, as opposed to an epic poet such as Homer or Hesiod — whose work survives best from the Archaic period. Though we know he wrote in several genres, the only corpus that comes down to us intact is his epinicia or epinicians: written upon (epi) the victories (nicia) of athletes at the four major athletic contests of Greece, viz. the Olympian (i.e., the Olympics), Pythian (at Delphi), Nemean (at Nemea in the Argolid) and Isthmian (at the isthmus of Corinth) games. Each poem celebrates the victory of an athlete (or, in some cases, a musician) at a particular event. Pindar interweaves myths and civic stories to burnish the achievements of man and polis alike.
The editio princeps of Pindar is Aldus Manutius’ 1513 edition, but there are serious flaws in its readings and, crucially, the scholia — ancient commentaries — do not appear.[1] The present item (historically called the Romana) is the princeps of the scholia, and a much improved edition of the poems. Indeed, Staffan Fogelmark in his monograph on the edition writes: “despite the fact that more than twenty complete editions in Greek were printed within a century, it was the 1515 edition, also known as the editio Romana, that became the vulgate text for three hundred years due to its great merits… and may be designated the most important Pindar edition ever.”[2] The scholia (vetera; the recentia — viz., medieval — are a different matter) derive from the librarians and scholars of Alexandria; the primary ancient scholiasts are Aristarchos (of Samothrace, ca. 220–143) and most of all Didymus (Chalcenteros, ca. 63–ad 10).[3] The scholia add immeasurably both to our interpretation of Pindar’s poems and their textual history, as well as to our knowledge of ancient scholarly traditions. Arranged in the format of manuscript editions of classical texts, the text of the poems is surrounded by the scholia beside and below.
Zacharias Kallierges (Calliergi) was born in Crete, which was at the time a Venetian colony. Bringing with him the unbroken Byzantine tradition of Greek learning, Kallierges emigrated to the Serenissima and then, at the invitation of Pope Leo X, to Rome. The present work is his first published there, and the first wholly Greek book published in Rome. Kallierges set up shop in the home of Agostino Chigi — now the Villa Farnesina — with the patronage of both Chigi (the wealthiest man of his day) and his chancellor Cornelio Benigno. Kallierges surpassed Aldus’ edition with his own (perhaps with the exception of the Pythian odes) by virtue of better access to manuscripts — though which ones precisely remains a matter of debate — and a sharper and more critical philological sense.
The textual importance of the volume is matched by its ownership. The XVIc signature at the lower edge of the title-page, easy enough to read, is nevertheless elusive: who was Julien Robert of Paris? Provenance falls silent for a couple of centuries, and then shows the book passing through the hands of three distinguished men of Oxford. The first was John Josias Conybeare (1779–1824). Conybeare matriculated in 1797 at Christ Church and became the inaugural Rawlinson Professor of Anglo-Saxon, as well as Professor of Poetry. His work on Beowulf set the stage for all modern scholarship on the poem. He adduces Pindar in his posthumous edition of the Old English song Widsith (1826).
The book was surely acquired after Conybeare’s death by George Wareing Ormerod (1810–1891), son of the more famous George Ormerod, antiquarian of Cheshire. After matriculating at Brasenose in 1829, Ormerod went on to be a solicitor and geologist of some renown; perhaps he parted with the volume in his waning days at Oxford.
The book’s last evidence-leaving owner was Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855), one of the giants of Classical learning in Britain. He was a life-long member of Christ Church, matriculating in 1797 (the same year as Conybeare), becoming a student (that is, a teaching member) in 1800, appointed Regius Professor of Greek — the highest chair in the subject, and arguably in all of academia — in 1811 and Dean of Christ Church in 1831, in which post he remained till his death. He was a prolific editor and textual critic, notably publishing the scholia of Sophocles in 1825. His contribution to the field is memorialized by the Gaisford Prize, which recognizes excellence in Greek composition and, more recently, essays. Both Gaisford (in his manuscript note to the title-page) and the binder — perhaps on Gaisford’s instructions? — incorrectly identify this as the editio princeps of Pindar’s poems.
The volume was purchased at the library sale of Howth Castle, where Gaisford’s descendants lived.
See generally Staffan Fogelmark, The Kallierges Pindar A Study in Renaissance Greek Scholarship and Printing (Cologne: Dinter, 2015), in whose census the present copy does not appear (although through correspondence with Prof. Fogelmark, the present volume is now accounted for).
Adams P 1219–1221.
[1] See Douglas F. Bauer, “Problems in the Aldine Pindar” in The Princeton University Library Chronicle 76.3 (2015) 419-446.
[2] Staffan Fogelmark, The Kallierges Pindar A Study in Renaissance Greek Scholarship and Printing (Cologne: Dinter, 2015) xii. Fogelmark’s indispensable treatment of the edition identifies ours as principally the second typesetting, with quire β in its first setting (the most common permutation). Fogelmark (100) explains that the sheets were mixed more or less freely.
[3] The standard treatment of the subject is H.T. Deas, “The Scholia Vetera to Pindar” in HSCP 42 (1931) 1-78.
Item #JLR0243
Price: $9,500