Theocritus. Idyllia [Greek]. Add: Theognis; Dionysius Cato: Disticha (trans. into Greek: Maximus Planudes); Sententiae Septem sapientium; De invidia; Hesiodus: Opera et dies, Theogonia [Greek]. ꦰWith table and colophon in Latin. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, February 1495/1496

The corrected second issue of Aldo’s anthology of Greek verse, with the two outermost sheets of quire Ζ.F and all of quire Θ.G reset to eliminate duplicated text and other errors and to accommodate additional lines to Theocritus's idyll Megara that were supplied from a manuscript discovered while the work was on the press. This copy text must have been found quite late in the press run because the second is𓂃sue is much less common than the first.

The revised issue adds a poem on the death of Adonis to Θ.G6v, which is blank in the first issue. Most significantly, it dramatically reimagines the shape poem "Syrinx." In the first issue, the poem is set with successively shorter lines, so that the text block resembles the pipe played by the satyr Pan who pursued the eponymous nymph. In the present, second issue, the text is set within a woodcut frame evoking an aulos—a perhaps more🙈 appropriate wind instrument for a Greek poet than a pan flute. 

Super-chancery folio (305 x 207 mm). Greek type, with some Roman, 30 lines plus headline. collation: Α.Α–Δ.D⁸ Ε.E–Θ.G⁶ ZZ.ζζ¹⁰ AA.αα–ΔΔ.δδ⁸ ΕΕ.εε⁶ α.a–β.b⁸ γ.c¹⁰ δ.d–ε.e⁸: 140 leaves. Woodcut strapwork initials and headpieces, some 🐎floriated. (Lightly washed.)

binding: Late nineteenth-century English dark brown morocco (314 x 220 mm) by Rivier𒅌e, signed on front turn-in, covers elaborately blind-panelled with floriate border, frame, and central rhombus with large blind arabesque in center, blind leaf- tool and gilt rosettes in interstices, spine in seven compartments, gilt-lettered in the second and third, with gilt leaf-tool in others, plain endpapers, gilt edges. (Extremities lightly rubbed.)

provenance: Sir Charles James Stuart, 2^nd Baronet (1824–1901), circular armorial bookplate — Sir Edward Andrew Stuart, 3^rd Baronet (1832–1903); Sotheby's London, Catalogue of a Portion of the Valuable Library of the late Sir Charles Stuart, Bart, now the property of his brother, 29–30 June 1903, lot 557; purchased by — Leo S. Olschki, Florence (£5) Martin Bodmer, Cologny (1899–1971) — H. P. Kraus, New York. acquisition: Purchased from H. P. Kraus, 1970. references: UCLA 7.5; Aldo Manuzio tipografo 7; BMC V♐ 554 (IB 24402), V 555 (IB 24408); Goff T144; Grolier/Aldus 10; GW M45831; ISTC it00144000; Renouard 5/3