Reformation > Melancthon's Homer
Homer, Ilias [et Odysseia]
Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1517
Columbia RBML Plimpton 880 1517 H37
Melancthon's Homer Inscribed to Martin Luther. The RBML owns three, heavily annotated volumes of Homer’s works in Greek that belonged to Philip Melancthon, a chief figure in the Lutheran Reformation. Melancthon used them in his university lectures at Wittenberg and later presented them to Martin Luther, who may also have taught from them. The bindings on two these volumes — of blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards — are dated 1559, which means they postdate Luther’s ownership of the volumes (Luther died in 1546).
On the title page of one of the volumes of the Iliad Melanchton writes in Latin, “To Martin Luther, theologian.” An inscription above, which may be in a different hand, makes note of page 90, where three lines of text have been marked in the same ink. These volumes are from the second edition of Homer’s works produced by Aldus Manutius in 1517.