Incunabula and the Keio University Library Collection

Aldus Manutius (Aldo Manuzio, c. 1452-1515), the 15th-century Italian printer who published a number of classical works, is known as the 'scholar-printer'. He not only had connections with classicists and humanists, but he himself was a devotee of classical Greek. After opening a printing house in Venice, he started publishing Greek texts. The Greek Opera of Aristotle is a major achievement of the first phase of Aldus's printing activity, as well as representing the editio princeps of Aristotle in Greek.

Aldus was born in Bassiano, a village located to the south-east of Rome. He studied in Rome from the end of the 1460s and in Ferrara in the late 1470s, where he received training in Latin, Greek and the classics. He then became tutor to the two sons of Pio of Carpi. One of them, Alberto, would later offer financial support to Aldus's printing enterprise. The present work was also backed by Alberto, and it was to acknowledge this sponsorship that Aldus included a dedicatory letter at the opening of each volume.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE) had been widely read since the Middle Ages, and was frequently cited in contemporary writings such as encyclopaedias. Aldus's Opera includes all the works that were considered at the time to be by Aristotle. In addition, it contains works by Aristotle's followers – Theophrastus (c. 370-c. 287 BCE), Galen (129-199? CE) and Alexander Aphrodisiensis (fl. c. 200 CE) – as well as those of later commentators. The first volume focuses on logic, also known as Organon (meaning a 'tool' for thinking and studying); the second, third and fourth volumes are dedicated to physics; and the fifth volume covers ethics.

Two different types, 1 and 7, are used in the Opera. Woodcut decorations of braided cords and Greek initials embellish the opening of each book. The first leaf of volume five (fol. 4α1) in the Keio set has been joined to the stub, probably in order to supplement the lost leaf or to replace the heavily damaged leaf. The upper part of the joined leaf, which had been cut out, has been mended. There is a loose leaf, also of fol. 4α1, that has been inserted in the same volume. This leaf, which has been torn from the bottom to the centre and has a hole in the centre, has also been mended. Another sheet of paper has been inserted in this volume, on which Charles Louis (1786-1836), the binder of the Keio set, left a message to his client and former owner of the set, the bibliophile Beriah Botfield (1807-1863), about the repair of the first leaf.

(MI)