FIRST ALDINE EDITION OF CATULLUS POEMS

CATULLUS, GAIUS VALERIUS. Carmina. Venetiis in aedibus Aldi, mense Ianuario MDII. [Venice: Aldo Manuzio 1502].

8vo, 19th century amateur blue morocco, gilt anchor on both covers, six raised bands spine with gilt title, gilt decoration at compartments, inner gilt dentelles, ff. [152].
Aldine anchor at title-page.

First Aldine edition and one of the first libri portatiles, the handy octavo size books that Aldus popularized.

«In their dedications to Marino Sanudo (1466-1536) Aldus and Avanzi emphasize that their Catullus is new. “Moreover, our Catullus will please you”, writes Aldus, “because he will not at all the same as he did before, because of many emendations and verses both added and restored to their original position”.
After ten years of collating manuscripts and printed editions -and attempting to solve the puzzle of Catullan metrics- Avanzi produced a much-improved text. The growing interest in Catullus at the turn of the century, coupled with the popularity and portability of Aldus’ octavo format, made Avanzi's text of Catullus the definitive text of the early sixteenth-century.

«The novelty of the Aldine consists not only in its text, which is far superior to that of any previous edition and contains many changes even from Avanzi's 'Emendationes', but also in the physical aspect of the book, for Aldus’ handy octavo, with its almost unprecedented press run of 3,000 copies, made Catullus far more widely available than he had been in the unwieldy tomes of the fifteenth-century» (Gaisser, Catullus and His Renaissance Readers, p. 52 ff.).

References: Renouard, 39.16. Adams, C-1137 and C-1138; Schweiger (latino), I, p. 77, col. 2; FLETCHER, New Aldine Studies, pp. 100-106. CNCE 1035.

A very fine copy.