Lot 157: HESYCHIUS OF ALEXANDRIA. Lexikon, in Greek. Hagenau: Thomas Anshelm, December 1521.

2° (318 x 200mm). Greek type in double columns. Large woodcut printer's device in colophon, one woodcut initial. (Some worming, light marginal spotting, occasional light soiling.) Contemporary wooden boards re-backed in calf to style, two brass catches, index tabs (lacking clasps, wormed); modern blue cloth box with red morocco spine label. Provenance: Jakob Spiegel (armorial bookplate with contemporary colouring) -- Saverne/Zabern, Franciscan monastery (gift inscription on title in an early ?18th-century hand) -- Marcel Longueville (inscription on title and some annotations, perhaps in his or another 19th-century hand).

The first edition published in a German-speaking country, correcting the Aldine edition of 1514, with Thomas Anshelm's striking device copied after Albrecht Dürer. FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE INFLUENTIAL GERMAN HUMANIST JAKOB SPIEGEL (1483-c.1540s), secretary to Archduke Ferdinand, to whom he was recommended by Erasmus, and now best known for his Lexicon Iuris Civilis (Strassburg 1538, reprinted 10 times in the 16th century). 'A unique source book, Hesychius's Lexicon deals mainly with words that exist in unusual forms or have more than one meaning, that is to say rare words that were not in everyday use. It also quotes a great many passages from lost works by orators, poets, historians and medical writers' (Staikos). Adams H-509; Anshelm (85); Benzing (Hagenau); Legrand I, 122, 44 (for the first edition); Schweiger I, 147; Staikos I, 348.

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