ΟΜΗΡΟΥ ΙΛΙΑΣ HOMERI ILIAS [and:] ΟΔΥΣΣΕΙΑ. Βατραχομυομαχια. Υμνοι. ?β. VLYSSEA. Batrachomyomachia. Hymni XXXII

Venice: In aedibus Aldi et Andreae Asulani Soceri, April, 1524. THIRD ALDINE EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. A married set, bound in matching leather bindings (late 18th- early 19th c.), boards ruled in gold, spines tooled with attractive floral ornaments, red labels with “Homerus” tooled in Roman, and green labels with the Greek titles (“ΙΛΙΑΣ “, “ΟΔΥΣΣΕΙΑ”). The Aldine anchor and dolphin device is tooled on the boards of both volumes. This is a married set, the first volume slightly taller than the second. The edges of the text blocks are stained an even red (Vol. I) and blue (Vol. II). Fine copies with very light damp-staining; titles lightly stained. Outer margin of leaves q7-8 with tide-line. Aldine anchor and dolphin device on the title pages and the versos of the final leaf in each volume. Working from the text of the editio princeps (1488), Aldus produced his first edition of Homer in 1504 in collaboration with members of his Aldine Academy, most notably the Cretan scholar Marcus Musurus and Scipio Forteguerra (Carteromachus). A second edition followed in 1517, two years after Aldus' death, printed by Aldus' father-in-law Andrea Torresano (d. 1528), who also printed this third edition. This edition retains the supplementary material included in the prior two editions.

"Whatever our views may be on the authorship of the Homeric poems, there is no doubt of their astonishing quality. They combine legends of a very distant past with a lively sense of the living scene, and though their characters are heroes and heroines, they are remarkably real. The story is told with a great simplicity, but this makes its episodes more dramatic, and in their greatest moments they contain some of the greatest poetry in the world. The plot moves with an unusual speed and the climaxes in both poems make an overwhelming impact. The rich, traditional language is ready for every occasion and, despite its richness, helps to maintain the essential simplicity. The poems are variously exciting, humorous, pathetic, and dramatic, and despite their fantastic elements, never far from common humanity. The similes present a whole world of contemporary people and things that lie outside the actual heroic tale, and the description of the shield of Achilles is surely the poet’s vision of his own world, as he knew it in war and peace. The poet or poets fully deserve their place at the beginning of European literature, since they have marked out for succeeding generations what the poetry of action and suffering ought to be." (OCD).