The book collection of Konstantinos Staikos is now part of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Library[1][2] It is centered on the intellectual, printing and publishing activity of the Greeks from the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the late 19th century.
His acquaintance with Georgios Ladas, who was profoundly conscious of the role played by printed books during the Ottoman domination and who collected and documented the bibliographic identity of an enormous number of books that came into his hands, empowered Konstantinos Staikos' intention to explore the chronicle of Greek typography in greater depth.
First editions by Manuel Chrysoloras, George of Trebizond, Cardinal Bessarion, Theodoros Gazis, Zacharias Kallierges, Nikolaos Vlastos and numerous others were presented successively in Florence (1986); the Benaki Museum (1987); Geneva University (1988); Strasburg (1989) and elsewhere.
Examples from the collection were exhibited at the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice in 1993, with landmark editions by Aldus Manutius, the products of literary editors by renowned Greek scholars such as Marcus Musurus and Ioannes Gregoropoulos.
In celebration of the Five Hundred Years since the establishment of the first Greek printing press (Venice 1499), the Greek Parliament Foundation assigned to Triantafyllos Sklavenitis and Konstantinos Staikos the organization of an exhibition of the most important material of the whole period: a considerable number of incunables and printed material deriving for the greater part from his library.