Μουσαίου ποιημάτιον τὰ καθ΄ Ἡρὼ καὶ Λέανδρον. Ὀρφέως Ἀργοναυτικά. Τοῦ αὐτοῦ ὕμνοι. Ὀρφεὺς περὶ λίθων. Musaei opusculum de Herone et Leandro [...]

Full title: Μουσαίου ποιημάτιον τὰ καθ΄ Ἡρὼ καὶ Λέανδρον. Ὀρφέως Ἀργοναυτικά. Τοῦ αὐτοῦ ὕμνοι. Ὀρφεὺς περὶ λίθων. Musaei opusculum de Herone et Leandro. Orphei argonautica. Eiusdem hymni. Orpheus de lapidibus

8vo. ff. [2] blank, 80, [2] blank. Morocco; signature of John Payne Collier (early hand) and of Gilbert A. Davies. Aldine anchor on title page and also on verso of last leaf; capital spaces with guide-letters. Two woodcuts illustrating the story of Hero and Leander on l. 8 verso and 9 recto.

Text of Musaeus (following the Aldine editio princeps of [1494/95]) in Greek and Latin, translated by Markos Mousouros (ca. 1470-1517); text of ‘Orpheus’ in Greek only.

The Argonautica and Orphic hymns follow the ‘editio princeps’ of Filippo Giunta (Florence, 1500); De lapidibus is printed here for the first time: see A. Renouard, Annales de l'imprimerie des Alde: ou Histoire des trios Manuce et de leurs editions, par Ant. Aug. Renouard, Paris, 1834 (3rd ed.), p. 81. The surviving fragmentary ‘Orphic’ hymns, etc., are certainly not C7–C6 BC, but "all pseudepigraphic" (cf. the new on-line edition-in-progress), being Hellenistic and later. Nonetheless, they were long taken as genuinely ancient, by Jean Dorat, Willem Canter, and the young Joseph Scaliger, the last translating some as by Orpheus himself, ‘vates vetustissimus’: see A. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger. A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, Oxford & New York, 1983, i: pp. 104–05 and n. 27.

Some texts are truly late, e.g. the Peri lithon, or De lapidibus poema Orpheo, which Tyrwhitt re-edited in 1781 from a text published by Gesner, attributing it to ‘the age of Constantius’, c. 357: see J. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship. From Antiquity to the Modern Era, Cambridge, 1908, ii, p. 419, and Bib# 4302657/Fr#34 in this collection. See also H. M. Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge Libraries. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1967, M1991.

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