Tuscolani, in edibus Alexandri de Paganinis, Die XXIIII. Mensis Decembri 1519, in-12 (13 x 8 cm. = 5'12 x 3'15 inches), 7 ff. - 215 numbered leaves - 20 ff., a8 - A-Z8, AA-DD8, aa-bb8, ninenty century brown calf (restorations on spine-ends,corners and joints), spine raised on 3 bands underlined by twisted fillets, gilt lettered black morocco label.
One of the two editions appeared in Toscolano (1519 and 1532) and the first to use a smaller format. It is in 1501 that Alde Manuce published for the first time this Latin grammar, which will keep a great notoriety throughout the sixteenth century. Aldus did, however, have remarkably progressive pedagogical ideas. For exemple in the preface of his 1523 edition, he admonishes teachers, " Do not force children to memorize anything except the best authors,...not your own composition in prose and verse or those in the grammar book. They will unlearn in a few days took great effort to learn...Children will become desperate, run away from school, and hate such studies". Our edition include : the foreword printed in red and black, the four parts of the Latin gramma. The first part is ornamented by a large engraved ornemental letter, the Appendix formed and the volume finishes, as it should be, by the four leaves of "Introductio Perbrevis AD Hebraicam linguam". Stains on the title page with little holes and ancient owner inscriptions with brown ink over. Light waterstains in the tail margins of 150 leaves but without gravity. Cfr. also Kristian Jensen, Latin The Grammar of Aldus Manutius and its Fortuna in Aldus Manutius and rebirth culture, pp. 247 to 285. A. Nuovo, Alessandro Paganini (1509-1538), Padua, 1990, n°47 .