Joannes Damascenus (Saint) Editio orthodoxae fidei, collation: 1⁸, ?-?⁸, ?⁴, ?⁸, ?^6, lacking blank leaf ?4, [8], 149 of 150, [4]ff., Greek text, ?1r strapwork border and first five lines of text printed in red, browned and spotted throughout; fingermarks and early ink stains, extensive marginal and interlinear Greek notes in the first quires in diffrent early hands, who also added drawings and diagrams in lower margins (see for example fol. ?7r), five blank leaves added at beginning and thirteen at end (not part of original book) annotated in Greek by an early owner, in margin of fol. ?4r and ?6r small paper strip pasted with annotation in a later hand, mumerous maniculae and reading marks on one of the added final leaves pencilled note 'The Manager New York Library 5th Avenue New York City N.Y. U.S.A.', 16^th-century Venetian blind-tooled brown calf, covers framed within border of multiple fillets and floral rolls, small tool at each corner and central fleuron, spine with three raised bands underlined by blind fillets, compartments decorated with small floral tool, corners and foot of spine damaged, modern morocco-backed board drop-back box, 4to, 204 x 150mm., Verona, Stefano Nicolini da Sabbio, and Brothers, March, 1531.

⁂ The rare Veronese edition of De orthodoxa fide, edited by Bernardino Donato and printed by Stefano Niccolini da Sabbio, active with his brothers in Venice from at least 1521. It is the second book printed in Greek in Verona, following the four-volumes of Johannes Chrysostomus (1529). Stefano, the most important member of the Nicolini publishing dystany, had been summoned from Venice by the Bishop of Verona, Gian Matteo Ghiberti, who wished to publish a series of patristic writings. Stefano established his press in the episcopal palace, and the texts were set in the Greek type designed and cut by him. At the end of 1532, after the publication of Oecumenius - the third and last Greek book issued from his Veronese press - he returned to printing in Venice.

The copy offered here in a fine blind-tooled binding bears witness to the brief history of 16th-century Greek printing in Verona. Dibdin maintained that the Ioannes Damascenus of 1531 was "by much and by far the finest Greek work which I ever saw the Sabii Press" (Bibliographical Tour, London 1829, III, p. 213).

Provenance: Title with ownership inscription in Greek ('Goergios [?]'), repeated on front pastedown.

Literature: Carpanè-Menato, Annali della tipografia veronese, I, 23.