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1469 Pliny the Elder Johannes de Spira Venice


1471 Pliny the Younger, Epistulae Christophorus Valdarfer<109> Venice Edited by Ludovico Carbone.

The edition does not include all ten books of the Epistulae but only the first seven and the ninth, for a total of 122 letters of the currently existing 375. These were increased to 236 letters in nine books with the publication of the Roman edition in 1490. Still missing was the tenth book, found by Giovanni Giocondo between 1495 and 1500 in the Abbey of St. Victor near Paris. Giocondo made a transcription, as did briefly after another Italian, Pietro Leandro, who once returned from France gave his partial copy of the tenth book to Girolamo Avanzi who printed the new 46 letters in Verona in 1502. For an edition of all Pliny's letters it was necessary to wait 1508, when Aldus Manutius printed in Venice a complete edition taking advantage of the transcript and other plinian manuscripts Giocondo had given him.