Aristophanes is known as the ‘father of Comedy’ and his plays provide topical satirical commentaries on life in Athens during its ‘golden age’ in the fifth century BCE. His plays were written during the period when Athens was at war with Sparta, the so-called Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE), and many of his plays are critical of the war, and the politicians who seem personally invested in prolonging it. His play The Clouds, containing a caricature of the philosopher Socrates, was blamed by Plato as being partially responsible for Socrates' trial and execution.

Aristophanes is known to have written some 40 plays, but only 11 survive intact. Nine of the eleven were first printed in Greek in this edition of 1498 by the Venetian printer and champion of Greek printing, Aldus Manutius (c.1450-1515), with a commentary by the Cretan scholar Marcus Musurus (c.1470-1517). Most surviving Greek literature had until this time been printed in Latin translations, with a few exceptions (Homer, Theocritus and Hesiod), but Aldus produced first Greek editions of 30 Greek authors, including Aristotle, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Demosthenes, as well as Aristophanes. He created four different Greek fonts, all based on the humanistic cursive Greek hand of the time, which is now difficult for us to read, with its ligatures and abbreviations, but perfectly recognisable to Aldus's clientele. The Aristophanes was the last text to be printed in his first font, and the commentary by Musurus was an example of his smaller, second font. The appearance of the text, small portions of the play surrounded by dense notes, apes the usual appearance of literary manuscripts with commentaries of the period.

Binding
Full leather binding (calf) plated pattern on boards, 5 raised bands sewn on 5 cords used for lacing cords.