Bembo, Pietro. Petri Bembi de Aetna ad Angelum Chabrielem liber. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, February 1495/1496

A brilliant, tall copy of Bembo's first publication, the first Aldine printed exclusively in Latin and in roman type. Rare: Rare Book Hub records only two other copie💎s at auction during the last seventy-five yea♏rs.

“This short tale of a journey to Mount Aetna undertaken by Pietro Bembo (1470–1547)... was printed in a new Roman font designed and cut for Aldus by Francesco Griffo (1450–1518). Its elegant simplicity has inspired type designers to this day, and is arguably the most influential design in the history of typography” (Grolier/Legacy).

Bembo’s journey to the volcano Aetna took place during his two years in Messina studying Greek with Constantine Lascaris; his account is written as a dialogue between him and his father Bernardo. Bembo brought back to Venice in 1494 a manuscript of Lascaris's Greek grammar from which Aldus printed his edition, Erotemata cum interpretatione Latina, in 1495—the first Aldine imprint.

De Aetna was consciously designed to be a pamphlet of elegance, with a small number of narrow lines per page, creating conspicuously spacious margins. Unusually, there is no title-page, only a dedicatory heading set in capitals. There is frequent wide spacing between words and punctuations, and a number of the lower-case letters have extended serifs to be set ad lib, in the manner of scribal flourishes. Curt Bühler noted that most copies contain hand corrections in varying numbers. This copy has such corrections on A1v, A2r (two), A4v, B1r, B1v, B4v, D3v and D6r. B2r is in the earlier state, before the turned letter in line 3 qnia was corrected in-press to quia.

Super-Chancery 4to (211 x 131 mm). Roman type, 22 lines. collation: A-C⁸ D⁶: 30 leaves.

binding: Straight-grained green morocco by Kalthoeber, ca. 1800, with his ticket, gilt arms෴ of Lord Spencer on covers [British Armorial Bindings, stamp 3], spine with gilt bands around compartments, gilt edges.

provenance: Count Károly Imre Sandor de Reviczky (1737-1793), his library purchased in 1790 by — George John, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834), arms on binding, accession number 3168, Bibliotheca Spenceriana label on inside front cover; his library purchased in 1892 by — Enriqueta Rylands, for the John Rylands Library, armorial bookplate dated 1894, small red ink stamp on flyleaf, and their withdrawn booklabel from 1988, sale of duplicates, Sotheby's, 14 April 1988, lot 15. acquisition: Purchased at the Rylands sale through Martin Breslauer, Inc. references: UCLA 6; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 6; BMC V 554 (IA.24410); Goff B304; GW 3810; ISTC ib00304000; Renouard 7/4; Curt F. Bühler, "Manuscript corrections in the Aldine edition of Bembo's "De Aetna"", PBSA 45 (1951), 136-142; Grolier/Legacy 20 (this copy); Grolier/Typography 6 (this copy)