Photius, Saint, Patriarch of Constantinople. Bibliotheke tou Photiou [graece]. Librorum quos legit Photius Patriarcha excerpta et censurae, edited by David Hoeschel, Greek text, title with woodcut printer's device cut and mounted on blank leaf with loss of one letter at end of third line, woodcut head- & tail-pieces and initials, without pp.919-985 (Hoeschel's Notes) at end, some light foxing and faint marginal water-staining at beginning and end but generally very clean, front free endpaper with neat ink inscription "Joseph von Lassberg auf der alten Meersburg ..." at head and outer corner cut away, contemporary sprinkled boards, gilt-stamped paper label, rubbed, folio, Augsburg, [Johannes Praetorius], 1601.

⁂ Editio princeps of the main work of the 9th century Byzantine scholar, a collection of commentaries on classical and early Christian texts, many of which are now lost. Hoeschel's notes were clearly never bound in.

The Donaueschingen copy. Joseph von Lassberg (1770-1855) was a German antiquary who was born in Donaueschingen and worked for the von Fürstenberg family. In 1838 he retired to Castle Meersburg on Lake Constance and concentrated on the study of German literature, assembling a library of over 12,000 books and 273 valuable manuscripts, including the codex of the Nibelungenlied. He eventually sold the library to the Fürstlich Fürtenbergischen Hofbibliothek at Donaueschingen.