1 November 1495

Aldus was the first publisher to produce a printed edition of Aristotle’s collected works, excluding only the Poetica and Rhetorica. This book, entitled Organon, is the first volume of the series and includes Aristotle’s works on logic and dialectic. Printed in November 1495 and edited by Aldus and others, it was the third book ever produced by Aldus and the first to contain the Greek text only, having been preceded by Lascaris’s Grammar and the edition of Musaeus Grammaticus’s poem on the myth of Hero and Leander, both of which included Latin translations.

As the inscription on the title page shows, the library copy was given by Cuthbert Tunstall (1474–1559) as part of his donation of eight incunabula to Cambridge University in 1529, while still bishop of London and shortly before he was appointed bishop of Durham in 1530. His bequest reflected his interest in classical Greek texts and comprised the first editions of Homer (Florence, after 13 January 1488/89) and Apollonius Rodius (Florence, 1496), edited by Demetrius Chalcondylas and Janus Lascaris respectively.

Inc.3.B.3.134[1803], fol. Alpha 1 recto