A True Original

Students Explore Aldine Plato, World's First Edition of Philosopher's Work

This spring, ten students studying Greek learned about printing presses first-hand, by creating an exhibit for Ainslie Arts Center on the School's copy of the Aldine Plato. The Aldine Plato is the world's first edition of Plato, and the copy owned by Episcopal is thought to have been owned by a member of the Tudor royal family, possibly Henry VIII.

As part of their studies in Greek, the students learned about the Aldine Press, a printing press in Venice that printed the complete works of Plato just 70 years after the Gutenberg Bible was printed. Working from facsimiles of the ancient text, students transliterated portions of the edition from the press' more obscure font into an orthodox ancient Greek font and then translated the text into English. They then compared the Aldine text with modern Greek editions of Plato.

Latin and Greek teacher Jeff Streed says, “EHS is blessed with a world-class collection of rare books and manuscripts. Our students are learning Latin and Greek through these impossibly beautiful books, and learning about the technology, the history, and the culture that produced the books.”

A team of Latin students is transcribing and translating a 15th century description of creation from the School's Nuremberg Chronicle, which will be exhibited next fall.