The lyric poet Horace (65-8 B.C.) was extremely popular during the Middle Ages and Renaissance and represented a potential best seller for a printer. The edition on display is Aldus's second edition, and the press subsequently issued twelve more, in addition to four separate editions of Horace's Ars poetica. Although Aldus claims that this edition has been greatly expanded and corrected, the text is almost an exact reprint of the 1501 edition.
In his preface Aldus relates a wild tale of how, when he was traveling in northern Italy in 1506 searching for manuscripts, he and his companion were mistaken by authorities of Mantua for brigands and thrown in jail for six days until rescued by his influential friend Geoffroy Charles, to whom he dedicates the book.
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Greek and Latin
Classics