Octavo: 17 x 11 cm. (32), 523, (1, blank), (108) pp. Collation: I. *8, **8 (**4 and 5 are conjugates that form the folded map of Spain), a-z8, A-Q8, R4. II. 134, (16) pp. Collation: A-I8, K4
This edition of Caesar includes the texts of the “Gallic Wars” and “Civil War”, together with the "De bello Alexandrino", "De bello Africano", and "De bello Hispaniense", ascribed to Aulus Hirtius. This edition also includes Raimundo Marliano’s useful index of the topography of Gaul in Roman times.
Admired for their style (most famously by Cicero) and read by both his supporters and detractors alike in antiquity, Caesar’s Commentarii fell into obscurity in the Middle Ages.
Venice: Guilielmo de Fontaneto. Montisferrati, 1520
$4,800.00
Folio: 30.5 x 21 cm. Collation: aa4, a-c8, d10, e-k8, l6, m10, n-x8, y10 (final blank lacking.)
With the commentaries of Bernardinus Cyllenius on Tibullus; Antonius Parthenius and Palladius Fuscus on Catullus, Philippus Beroaldus on Propertius; and the Emendationesof Hieronymus Avantius on Lucretius, Catullus, the Priapeia, and Statius' Silvae.
Octavo: 14.1 x 9.8 cm. [10 of 12], 228, [84 of 86] pages. Collation: π6 (-π5), A-Z4, Aa-Ee4, F1; a8-e8 (-b1), f4 (-f4 presumed blank). Lacks two printed leaves.
I have been unable to identify any earlier instance of an entire volume, printed in Mexico, exclusively dedicated to the work of a classical author. A long Spanish introduction by the printer places the work under the protection of Saint Joseph to find a broad readership.
Folio: Five volumes bound as two: 37.5 x 25 cm. Vol I: “Rhetorica”: *8, a-s8. (*1 is the general title, a1 is the title to Vol I); “Orationes”: aa-zz8, aaa-qqq8, rrr-sss6 (lacking blank sss6); Vol II: “Epistolae”: A-Z8, AA-CC8; “Philosophica”: Aa-Zz8, AAA-DDD8, EEE10; “Explicationes”: A-P8, Q10 (Q10 blank and present)
For his edition, Robert Estienne used the text of Cicero as edited by Pietro Vettori, and has included Vettori's important "Explicationes" as a fifth volume. Vettori would later (in 1557) furnish the first complete text of Aeschylus' "Oresteia" for Henri Estienne II's celebrated edition of the tragedian's plays.
"The respect and renown accumulated by the edition of Cicero's complete works produced by Petrus Victorius (Pietero Vettori, 1499-1585) between 1534 and 1537, was in large part due to the careful and extensive integration of manuscript evidence into the text.
Cambridge: Ex officinâ Johan. Hayes, celeberrimæ Academiæ typographi. Impensis Richardi Green bibliopolæ Cantab., 1694
$1,500.00
Folio: 32 x 20.5 cm. [8], lvi, 330; [2], 529, [43 ] p. Collation: a-g4, h2, (A)2, B-Z4, Aa-Tt4, Vv2, a-z4, aa-zz4, aaa-zzz4, aaaa-bbbb4, cccc2. With two added engraved portraits of Barnes and Euripides.
“The merits of all preceding editions are eclipsed by this celebrated one of Joshua Barnes. Fabricius observes that ‘the text is accurately revised and printed, the metrical rules of Canter diligently corrected, and the entire ancient scholia on the first seven plays subjoined and enriched by excerpta from a manuscript in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The notes of various learned men, and those of Barnes accompany the scholia; the fragments of Euripides are carefully collected and displayed, with Greek and Latin notes as far as verse 2068; lastly, there are some epistles, attributed to Euripides.
Quarto. 24.5 x 20.3 cm. Two volumes bound as one: *4, **4, A-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Zzz4, Aaaa-Vvvv4, Xxxx2; a-z4, aa-zz4, aaa-xxx4, aaaa-eeee4, ffff2
Although printed by Hackius, the edition is still referred to (somewhat confusingly) as the Elzevir edition. Some copies have the Elzevir Amsterdam imprint on one or both of the title pages (there are also "mixed" sets) but Willems ("Les Elzevier", 1880, p.
Willems 1202; Dibdin II, 53; Brunet III, 272-3; Graesse III, 328; Schweiger I, 158; Bibliotheca Philologica Classica et Archaeologica (1913), 2087 ('Cette belle édition est recherchée à cause des commentaires')
Quarto: 19 x 14 cm. Aa-Bb4; A-X4, Y6; aa-dd4. Complete.
Fourth and most complete edition of Huttich’s "Imperatorum et Caesarum Vitae", his most important work, first published in 1525.
This volume is profusely illustrated with several hundred woodcut images, most of which are by Hans Weiditz. "The medallions of the emperors [and their families] are 268 in number, commencing with Julius Caesar and ending with Frederick III, Maximilian I and his son Philip the Fair, Charles V and Ferdinand I.
Folio: 32.7 x 21.7 cm. [12], 804, 809-1351, 1354-1403, [43] pp. Collation: [A] B-6F . (with blank [A]6 and without blank 6F6)
This is the first complete rendering into English of the most important Roman historian. The scholar-surgeon Philemon Holland is one of the great literary figures of the twilight years of the Elizabethan age. Like his contemporary John Florio, who translated Montaigne’s “Essays” into English in 1599, Holland not only made the works that he translated accessible to English readers, but also put his own stamp on those works, creating something at once faithful and new.
Folio: 30 x 20 cm. π6 (-blank π1), ¶4, A-D4, E4 (-blank E4), F-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Ttt4, Vvv2. (Leaves Q2 and 3 reversed.) With an added engraved title, engraved portrait frontispiece, and fifteen full-paged engravings.
This edition of Sandys’ translation also includes his translation of Book One of Vergil’s “Aeneid”. Sandys never accomplished the task of translating the entire poem. The work that he found “too heavy a burthen” was later taken up by his admirer, John Dryden. On the front end-paper of this volume is a manuscript quote, attributed to Dryden, which reads, “English poetry owes much of its present beauty to Sandys’ translations.
Octavo: 19.3 x 11.5 cm. I. *8 (-*1, blank), **8, ***2, A-Z8, Aa-Oo8, Pp4, Aaa-Lll8; II. *4, A-F8, G4 (lacking blank leaf G4) With an added, engraved title page by Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708).
Michael Hadrianides’ 1669 edition of Petronius is the first to incorporate the “Fragmentum” discovered in Trau, Dalmatia, which contained the hitherto unknown text of the “Cena Trimalchionis” and is also "the first edition to contain all the fragments of the novel that we currently possess”. This copy is bound together with the –often lacking- 1670 edition of the “Fragmentum”, which prints the text as it appeared in the manuscript, here edited by Johannes Lucius, with the Apologia of Marino Statileo, who discovered the manuscript in Dalmatia.
Schmeling & Stuckley, Bibilography of Petronius, 71 & 78; Gaselee (Bibliography of Petronius), 49 & 51; Schweiger II p.723; Brunet IV 574; Graesse Vol 5 p. 239; Dibdin (4th ed.) Vol II, p. 276. Literature: See M.S. Smith’s 1975 Oxford edition of the “Cena Trimalchionis”, pp. xxii-xxiii and xxxvi; See also Alfred R. Allinson’s introduction to his translation of the “Satyricon.”
Folio: 31.7 x 20.4 cm. 6 lvs, 690 pp., 23 lvs. [alpha]6, [alpha]-[omega]6, [2Alpha]-[2Omega]6, [3Alpha]-[3Eta]6, [3Theta]-[3Iota]8, [3Kappa]-[3Mu]6, [3Nu]4
This edition was edited by the Dutch humanist Arnoldus Arlenius (d. 1582). The preface is signed by Marcus Hopper, Petri’s secretary and professor of Greek at the University of Basel, who dedicates the edition to Basilio Amerbach. Hopper makes two main points in his preface: that the edition was designed so as to be more affordable and easily usable for the wider reading public, and that thanks to Arlenius’ exhaustive quest for new manuscripts from Italy, it had been possible to note and to correct a host of errors (the corrections number 1,000), so that the edition is the most authoritative.
Folio: 33 x 22 cm. π6 [par.]4 a-b6 A8 B-3I6 3K4; A-3G6 3H4 3I-3O6 3P8 (lacking blank leaves π1 and 3P8) Complete in two parts; with a divisional title page to the second tome and the errata/colophon on leaf 3P7
“The ‘Natural History’ of Pliny the Elder is more than a natural history: it is an encyclopaedia of all the knowledge of the ancient world… It comprises 37 books with mathematics and physics, geography and astronomy, medicine and zoology, anthropology and physiology, philosophy and history, agriculture and mineralogy, the arts and letters… The ‘Historia’ soon became a standard book of reference; abstracts and abridgements appeared by the third century.
Quarto: 25.8 x 16.7 cm. *4, a-z4, aa-zz4, aaa-kkk4, lll2; A-Z4, Aa-Gg4, Hh2 (includes blank ggg4; lacks blank Hh2).
“The great Estienne Sophocles, important for the scholia, which include those of Triclinius. The Greek text is followed by the commentary of Joachim Camerarius, and his Latin versions of Ajax and Electra. [Estienne] has again employed his peculiar system of diacritical annotations.” (Schreiber) With Estienne’s “Noli altum Sapere” printer’s device on the title page.
Quarto: 25.2 x 16.2 cm. *4, a-z4, aa-zz4, aaa-kkk4, lll2; A-Z4, Aa-Gg4, Hh2 (includes blanks ggg4 and Hh2).
“The great Estienne Sophocles, important for the scholia, which include those of Triclinius. The Greek text is followed by the commentary of Joachim Camerarius, and his Latin versions of Ajax and Electra. Estienne has again employed his peculiar system of diacritical notations.” (Schreiber)
"The standards and methods of Thucydides as a contemporary historian have never been bettered. Thucydides has been valued as he hoped; statesmen as well as historians, men of affairs as well as scholars, have read and profited by him" -PMM 102
Folio: 32.2 x 21 cm. Collation: ¶6, ¶¶4, a-z6, aa-zz6, aaa-nnn6, ooo4.
"The second Estienne edition is generally considered the best sixteenth century edition of the greatest historian of Athens. For this new edition Estienne has corrected the Greek text and scholia, as well as further revised Lorenzo Valla's Latin translation, which is now printed on the same page with the Greek text, in parallel columns, while the Greek scholia are printed at the foot of the page.
Folio: 31 x 20.5 cm. [π]2 (engraved and printed titles), A4, (a)-(d)4, (e)2, B-Z4; Aa-Zz4; Aaa4. With five added maps and plates.
Hobbes published his translation of Thucydides' masterpiece in 1629, when he was in his early forties. Yet he tells us in the introduction that the translation, once completed “lay long by” him, indicating that it had been completed much earlier.
“Hobbes was interested in Thucydides less for his style than his subject matter. Nor did he take up the study and translation of the Greek historian simply with a scholar’s antiquarian interest, but with the humanist desire to learn and pass on the lessons of history to his contemporaries.
