THEOPHRASTUS - Characteres ΘΕΟΦΡΑΣΤΟΥ ΧΑΡΑΚΤΗΡΕΣ - 1531

THEOPHRASTUS – Characters.
With Latin interpretation. Basel, at the workshop of Andr. Cratander, September, in the year of Christ [1531].

In-8° (about 15.5 × 10 cm), pp. 45, [1].
Contemporary binding (or slightly later, 18th century) in marbled leather (pelle marezzata), boards framed by triple gold lines, spine with raised bands and gold-tooled title and ornaments, sprinkled cut edges.

Overall good condition: binding with the usual wear and handling abrasions, some small losses to the spine and corners; inside with a light water stain along the gutter on some leaves, scattered spots and browning, but text always legible. At the title page an ancient handwritten ownership note (“A.C. Joanny Baptista…”) and some contemporaneous marginal glosses; on the front endpaper private collection stamp and modern annotations (including the attribution of the woodcut frame to Hans Holbein).

Basel edition by Andreas Cratander (Andreas Hartmann), printer and publisher active in Basel between 1518 and 1535, specializing in classical Greek and Latin texts.
Frontispiece within a rich carved woodcut frame, populated with putti, allegorical figures and Renaissance ornaments (attributed by antiquarian tradition and by handwritten notes to Hans Holbein the Younger, an artist who frequently collaborated with Basel printers, including Cratander).
Greek text of the Χαρακτῆρες followed by the Latin translation/notes (Notae). Signature: α-γ⁸ (γ8 blank). Printer’s mark by Cratander at the end.
Reference: VD16 T930.

Content
The Characters (or Characteres etici) of Theophrastus (Eresos, ca. 371 – Athens, ca. 287 B.C.E.), successor to Aristotle in directing the Lyceum, constitute a unique work in ancient Greek literature: a collection of thirty brief psychological and moral portraits of “types” of humans (the Dissembler, the Flatterer, the Talker, the Untimely one, the Proud, the Midas-like, the Pedant, etc.).
Each portrait opens with a definition and proceeds with a series of concrete behaviors, observed with keen and ironic eye in everyday Athenian life at the end of the 4th century B.C.

The work, transmitted in incomplete form and with textual problems, enjoyed enormous literary fortune: it served as a model for the English “character-writers” of the 17th century, for La Bruyère and for the entire European tradition of the character study.

This 1531 edition presents the first fifteen characters then known (the remaining ones were recovered and published progressively between 1552 and 1786).
The Greek text is accompanied by the Latin translation/notes, which facilitates reading and study.

Importance and rarity
This is one of the earliest printed editions of the work (after the editio princeps by Willibald Pirckheimer, Nuremberg 1527). Cratander’s edition is especially valued for:
• the typographic quality typical of the Basel schools;
• the presence of a high-level artistic woodcut frame (connectable to Holbein’s circle);
• the role it played in the diffusion and stabilization of the Greek text in the sixteenth century (from which later editions derive, including that of Oporinus in 1541).

Copies of this edition are relatively scarce on the antiquarian market. The combination of original Greek text, Latin translation, early dating, seven­teenth-century binding, and a prestigious woodcut frame makes it a piece of definite interest for collectors of Renaissance Greek editions, classical literature, and Basel typography.

One complete copy, typographically and historically significant, of the small but fundamental “aureolus libellus” of Theophrastus.