Leonis Allatii De Patria Homeri

8vo. pp. 31 [i.e. 39]; pp. 295; f. [1], pp. 71, (5), [1] (blank). Contemporary sheep with gilt title on spine and gilt initials ‘A M’ in spine compartments. Engraved vignette of Homer and the Sphinx on title page, with a smaller rendering of the same on p. 11 of the first section. Ownership inscription of Abraham Girard, dated 1668, on title page.

Rare first edition of this patriotic, yet intensely learned effort by Allatios (ca. 1586-1669), a native of Chios, to prove that the birthplace of Homer was, in fact, Chios. As the librarian of Cardinal Barberini, Allatios had unparalleled access to manuscripts in Roman libraries and beyond, including those of the Bibliothèque Royale in Paris which supplied the two main accounts used in his treatise; unfortunately along the way Allatios takes such spurious works as the accounts of the ‘Trojans’ Dictys and Dares at face value. The preliminary matter includes a dedication to Francesco Barberini and the author’s foreword, thanking his friend Jean Bourdelot for copies of the two manuscript lives of Homer from Paris: one by Proclus, and the other anonymous; both are presented in Greek and Latin on facing pages. The second section contains Allatios’ own extrapolations, research and hypotheses; and the last section is a lengthy poem on the subject of Homer’s birthplace composed in Greek by Allacci and kindly translated into Latin by a Goan-born philologist, André Baian. Allatius was vigorously involved in Classical debates and had just published, in 1637, “his own set of controversial ancient texts, the purported writings of Socrates, Antisthenes, and other Socratic philosophers – essays that flew in the face of Plato’s contention that Socrates had never written anything” (I. Rowland, The Scarith of Scornello: A Tale of Renaissance Forgery, Chicago, 2004, pp. 73-74).

See also J.E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship. Cambridge, 1903, p. 356; a recent study of Allatios is K. Hartnup, 'On the Beliefs of the Greeks': Leo Allatios and Popular Orthodoxy. Leiden, 2004.

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