(First title:) LUKOPHRONOS TOU CHALKIDEÔS ALEXANDRA, to skoteinon poiêma, kai eis auto touto ISAAKIOU, mallon de IÔANNOU, tou TZETZOU EXÊGÊMA. (Second title:) Lycophronis Chalcidensis Alexandra, obscurum poema. Cum graeco Isaacii, seu potius Johannis Tzetzae commentario. Versiones, variantes lectiones, emendationes, adnotationes, & indices necessarios adjecit Johannes Potterus, A.M. & Collegii Lincolniensis Socius. Editio secunda, priori auctior.

Folio. (XVIII, including a frontispiece & a title in Greek):183,(1 blank),(28 index),(2),(4),174,(17 index),(1 blank) p. Vellum 33 cm (Ref: ESTC Citation No. T107442; Hoffmann 2,569; Dibdin 2,209/210; Brunet 3,1248; Sandys 2,356; Graesse 4,309; Ebert 12546: ‘This 2nd edition is particularly scarce’) (Details: 8 thongs laced through the joints. Red morocco shield on the back. The frontispiece, an engraving of ‘M. Burghers’, depicts Alexandra, she points at Troy in fire in the background. Burghers was one of the leading engravers of England during that period. The book has 2 titles, the first one is in Greek, and is adorned with an big engraving of the Sheldonian Theatre, also made by Burghers. The second title is in Latin, and has a woodcut printer’s mark, which shows the wellknown coat of arms of the University of Oxford) (Condition: Vellum soiled. Boards somewhat outstanding) (Note: Lycophron, 3rd cent. BC, was called to Alexandria by King Ptolemaeus Philadelphos. There he wrote his Alexandra (or Cassandra), ca. 1474 iambic trimeters in which Kassandra (=Alexandra) tells about the fall of Troy, and the fates of the Greek and Trojan Heroes. Dibdin calls this edition ‘beautiful’ and the ‘editio optima’. He cites Harwood, who declares this work to be ‘an everlasting monument of the learning of the illustrious editor’. The illustrious editor was the learned cleric John Potter, 1674-1747, who later in life, in 1737, was appointed bishop of Canterbury. Young Potter corrected in this edition the commentaries of Tzetzes using 3 new manuscripts; he added indices, and annotations of himself. At the age of 14 Potter was sent to Oxford, University College. There he distinguished himself by his knowledge of Greek. Still a young man, in 1697, he produced his first edition of Lycophron. In 1698 Potter published his greatest success, the ‘Archaeologia Graeca’, which long remained a standard book for Greek students in Britain. In 1715 Potter produced his splendid edition of Clemens Alexandrinus. (Chalmers’ Biography, 25,231) The first 146 p. of this 1702 edition contain the Greek text, with iuxtaposed the Latin prose translation of the Dutch classical scholar Willlem Canter (1545-1572), dating from 1566. The scholia are printed on the lower half of the page, together with the ‘variantes lectiones’ and the ‘emendationes’. After the Greek text follows the metrical (iambico carmine) translation into smooth Latin made by J.J. Scaliger (1540-1609), which was published toghether with Canter’s translation in 1566 in Basel. The second half of the book contains the notes (annotationes) of Canter and a specimen of Canter’s versatility in Greek and Latin verse, the ‘Epitome Cassandrae graeco-Latina, versibus Anacreontiis conscripta’. Added is also the commentary of the Dutch classical scholar Johannes Meursius (1579-1639), published in 1597 & 1599. At the end we find the commentary of John Potter himself) (Provenance: Small bookplate of the Swiss politician Karl Zeerleder, 1780-1851, on the front pastedown. Small blind stamped owner’s mark of Mark Pattison, 1813-1884, in the right margin of the title. Pattison was like Potter a tutor at Lincoln College. In 1861 Pattison was elected rector. He is best known for his biography of the French classical scholar Isaac Casaubon, and for being Mr. Casaubon, a chief character in Middlemarch, the famous novel of George Eliot) (Collation: Frontispiece, pi2, a-b2, A-D2 E-2C4, 2D-2I2, chi1; *A-*Z4, *Aa4, *Bb2) (Photographs on request) (Heavy book, may require extra shipping costs)