ATHENEA. Deipnosophiston Biblia Pentekaideka (in Greek)]. - - Lot 67

ATHENEA. Deipnosophiston Biblia Pentekaideka (in Greek)]. - Deipnosophistarum libri XV. Heidelberg], Jerôme Commelin, 1597. In-folio, contemporary limp vellum, traces of laces, later red morocco title-piece. Title, 702 pp, (1) blank f., (24) ff. Precious and very rare Greco-Latin edition of the Greek gastronomic treatise Le Banquet des Savants. This edition is highly sought-after, as it features, on two columns, the Greek text arranged and commented on by Isaac Casaubon (1559-1614) and the Latin translation compiled and annotated by the physician and naturalist Jacques Daléchamps (1513-1588). Very fine printing, attributed according to Graesse to the workshop of P. Estienne in Geneva. Divided into 15 books - of which only the first three have come down to us complete (we have only an abridged version of the last two) - this work was written by Athenaeus, a rhetorician and grammarian born in Egypt in the 3rd century. The sole transmitter of Greek cuisine, he cites some 700 authors' names and recalls 1,500 lost works. He wrote his Deipnosophistes in Greek, compiling material from his readings: in the form of a dialogue between Athenaeus and his friend Timocrates, the work offers a wealth of observations on wine (I and II), fruit and shellfish (III), tableware (VI), famous cooks and gourmets such as Archestrate or Apicius (IX and X), etc. In Book One, "the ways of drinking and the different wines are described in detail: wines from Italy, Chios and Lesbos, Egypt, etc.". Book Two begins with a detailed description of the origin, nature, properties and principal effects of wine" (Simon). It also gives recipes of all kinds, deals with the organization of the table and topics of conversation, and addresses the sciences, poetry, manners, civil habits, religious customs, festivals, music, perfumes, toiletries, dance, clothing... Athenaeus' treatise is thus the richest encyclopedia of antiquity. Copy from the Kilian Fritsch collection (printed bookplate - 1993, no. 5). Title margins repaired, title and last ff. slightly creased. Ff. hhhiii and hhhiiii come from another copy. Pagination errors but not missing. Some old handwritten notes in the margins. Some foxing. Mottling. Spine partly detached, small old restoration to second plate and bottom of spine, vellum handled and stained. Graesse, I, 244 - Oberlé, Bach., 5 (this copy).