PAUSANIAS [Œuvres, en grec].

Ahmansson-Murphy 146 ; Renouard, Alde, 76/3 ; Adams P-496; see Blackmer, 1273 (only the late Greek edition, Leipzig, 1699).

Editio princeps edited by Marcus Musurus.

Pausanias’s Description of Greece is a second-century guide-book to the Peloponnese and Northern Greece. Based on his own travels, it describes the historical sights and natural phenomena of these regions, for example the great tortoises of Arcadia, the white blackbirds of Mount Cyllene and the wild strawberries of Helicon. He always shows a particular interest in the history of both the sites and customs that he observes.Aldus had been planning to publish this text for a long time, and we know from a letter of 1502 that he thanked Johannes Calpurnius for the loan of his manuscript. The edition was compiled by Marcus Musurus from the fifteenth-century manuscript now in Florence.

This beautiful book is considered by N.G. Wilson (From Byzanthium to Italy, p.155) as  “one of the best of the editiones principes”.

In his dedication, Musurus praises Lascaris for his tireless efforts to free Greece from Turkish occupation and for his intellectual assistance to the Greeks of Venice and elsewhere. 

A fine copy printed on fine paper.

It could be a copy on large paper of which Renouard notes: “J’ai déjà fait plus haut une remarque qu’il ne sera pas mal-à-propos de réitérer ici, c’est que dans l’année 1514, et quelques unes des suivantes, il a été imprimé de plusieurs de ces éditions in-folio quelques exemplaires sur un papier plus grand, plus fort et d’une beauté remarquable”. 

Some old notes on the first 10 pages; spine and endpapers renewed in the 19th century. 

From the library of John Albert Spranger, Trinity College Cambridge (bookplate on front board and wet stamp on title).