Lexicon Graecolatinum... by GILLIO, Petrus (Pierre Gilles), ed - September 1532

Basel: Valentin Curio, September 1532. Hardcover. Very Good. 1532 Curio edition of Pierre Gilles’ important Greek and Latin lexicon, the competitor to Cratander’s edition of the same year. Folio (320 x 210mm). Double columns of Greek and Roman types. Curio’s woodcut printer’s device to title and rear verso. Limp vellum, stamped in blind, binder’s waste in gutter; rounded corners and some chips most severe at prelims. and rear, occasional worming otherwise internally clean. Integral preliminary blank with pen-drawn heraldic shield and ownership inscriptions in a 17th-century hand, title similarly inscribed and dated “1695,” above one cancelled inscription, inscriptions in Greek and Latin on the verso of a rear blank. Armorial ex-libris of James Heron Watson (oak tree a bend charged with rampant lion) on verso of title.

Valentin Curio’s Lexicon Graecolatinum was edited by Gilles and supplemented by a preface written by Simon Grynaeus. Pierre Gilles, or Petrus Gillio as he is known from his Latin texts, was born in Albi in 1490. From an early age Gilles took an interest in the enthusiasms of his French humanist contemporaries including François Rabelais, Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples, and Guillaume Budé. The first 1519 Basel edition of the Lexicon Graecum was printed by Andreas Cratander, who worked with Gilles from 1515 to 1518, and after that, until his death in 1536, Cratander printed under his own name. In the 1519 epilogue Cratander mentions Valentin Curio’s important contribution to the dictionary. However, Curio soon afterwards started his own printing business and in 1522 and presented a new version of the Lexicon Graecum expanded by over 3,000 new entries. Nine years later, a “tension” occurred, as the records of the Basel City Council state, because as they mistakenly put it, “Andreas Cratander ventured to reprint the Greek dictionary that had first been printed by Valentin [Curio].” Curio wanted to prevent the reprint altogether, but the Council decided that “[...] since both of them have already begun printing and incurred expenses, this time they may both carry on with the impression.” Although, Cratander was explicitly forbidden to use certain annotations and supplementary features with which Curio was responsible for and intended to use to enhance his new edition. Cratander’s Lexicon included contributions by Adrien Amerot, Philipp Melanchthon, and also by Simon Grynaeus. In 1532, both versions were published, this present copy the Curio edition. Fresh and bright printing of an important lexicon, which underwent several revisions and was widely noticed. Very Good.