Rare Books

Princeton has a number of notable Aldines, including copies of the first book using italic (or Aldine) type, the Vergil of 1501; the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna, 1499; the Tragoediae Septem of Sophocles, 1502, (The Hoe Copy); Peloponnesian War of Thucydides, 1502, (The Drury-Syston Park copy, which was mentioned by Dibdin in his Greek and Latin Classics); Pindar, 1513, (The Hoe copy); Tragoediae Sex by Aeschylus, 1518, (The Altemps-Huth copy); and others. All are located in the General Rare Books Collection.

For particulars refer to: Henry Savage, "Sixteenth Century Aldines" in the Princeton University Library Chronicle XI, 1 (Autumn, 1949) p. 49 [full text] ; and Mary Laura Gibbs, "Aldus Manutius as Printer of Illustrated Books" in the Princeton University Library Chronicle XXXVII, 2 (Winter, 1976) p.109 ff. [full text]

Two counterfeit Aldines are recorded under numbers 31 and 44 in the Weber catalog for the Library's Vergil collection. Weber catalog is available online. A third contrefaçon was identified by Scott Clemons, Class of 1990. See https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/9463872

For a list of Aldines in the Library see the Collections File under Aldines. The list was compiled by Craig Kallendorf during his research at the Library in 1996.