{"title":"Antiquity \u0026 Classics","description":"\u003cp\u003eBooks on the ancient world, classical literature, mythology, philosophy, history and the civilisations of Greece and Rome. \u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"aesop","title":"AESOP","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne of the rarest and most sought after editions of the early Aldine press and in practice the earliest obtainable of the author's original text. The volume comprises the Aesopian Fables in Latin and Greek, together with a life of the author, similarly the 34 fables of Gabrias, Phurnutus on the 'nature of the Gods', Palaephatus on disbelieving histories, Heraclides on the allegories of Homer, the hieroglyphs of Horapollo, a collection of proverbs drawn from Tarraeus and Didymus, Aphthonius and Philostratus' de fabula in Latin and Greek, those of Hermogenes translated by Priscian, and finally an Apologia for Aesop 'de Cassita apud Gellium'. Almost all of these, apart from the Aesop, are in their first edition or editio princeps, Praz p. 373 particularly notices the Horapollo. \u003cbr\u003e\n Aesop is the traditional composer of the oldest and most important collection of Greek Fables, which are probably the earliest examples of popular and maybe children's literature still extant. Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC already knew of Aesop as an author from the past. Aesop's life has been overlaid by many romantic fictions but it is fairly certain that he was a Thracian, a house slave and likely a family tutor on the island of Samos at the beginning of the 6th century BC. His Fables are one of the most enduring works of European literature, of which the earliest written compilation probably dates from three centuries later and is now lost. The earliest surviving version is Roman, made by Babrius, tutor to the children of Alexander Severus in the 3rd century AD, though stories from other, especially oriental sources, were probably added. The collection we now recognise was compiled and edited by Maximus Planudes and from which the popular fables of modern Europe have been derived. Whatever their exact origin they have constituted a delightful source of amusement and instruction for children of all ages since they were popularised by the printed editions of the C16, of which none is more important than this printed and edited by Aldus.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"AESOP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816065999183,"sku":"L1283","price":59500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1283-6.jpg?v=1781795331"},{"product_id":"bessarion-cardinal-johannes","title":"BESSARION, Cardinal Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003ePart I comprises the second much expanded Aldine edition of Bessarion s great defense of Plato and Platonism, written in response to the translation of the  Laws  by George of Trebizond who had taken advantage of its publication to print a sharp criticism of Plato and exalt Aristotle. Bessarion, one of the great humanists and Hellenists of the mid C15 had studied philosophy under Gemistus Pletho and imbibed from him a love of Plato, happily shorn of Gemistius  hatred of Aristotle. Bessarion rather advocated a synthesis of the two systems of learning, perceiving and appreciating their many points of contact and in the present work (ch. 5) demolishes Trebizond s attack by the simple device of enumerating verbatim all the errors of his translation and faults in his commentaries. The second part of the present work, here printed for the first time, comprises Bessarion s own translation of Aristotle's metaphysics and book one of those of Themistius. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n It is said that Bessarion, the greatest scholar - statesman - diplomat - ecclesiastic of his age, had three aims in life: the reunion of the Latin and Eastern Church, the rescue of Greece from Moslem occupation and the triumph of classical literature and poetry, especially the Greek. He succeeded temporarily in the first, partially in the second , and beyond all expectation in the third - paving the way for the great revival that was to follow. In between his many extraordinary labours in the public field, organizing crusades, restoring the City and University of Bologna, dominating great international councils, he became patron of the very first Renaissance Accademia (actually founded in his house) and amassed an extraordinary library of more than eight hundred codices of ancient Greek ms. - which he gave to form the basis of the Marciana in Venice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BESSARION, Cardinal Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816066097487,"sku":"L1198","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Bessarion-L1198-1.jpg?v=1781795331"},{"product_id":"hermogenes","title":"HERMOGENES","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare and important edition of the rhetorical works of Hermogenes complete with the separately paginated commentary which is often missing (see Brunet). This is the first edition of the translation of Gaspard Laurent, and of his extensive commentary. Laurent, a French Huguenot in origin, established himself at Geneva where he taught literature (1597) and in 1600 became Rector of Academy. He published principally on religious topics but he had a particular interest in public theological disputations and may well have been attracted to Hermogenes as a practical manual of reference. The especial importance of the volume however lies with the binding which is at once unusual, lovely and skilfully executed. It must be one of relatively few volumes in De Thou's extraordinary collection (Bibl. Thuanae part II, p.241) that he did not have rebound with his own arms - really the highest compliment. An early typed note in the book states that at W.H. Corfield's sale in 1904 the binding was described as French and there are common elements but there seems no reason to suppose that the volume travelled very far from the press before it was bound. Despite the unusual huntsman tool however we have been unable to find a comparable or identify the binder, so the only description we can offer is 'probably Geneva' 1614 or shortly thereafter.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HERMOGENES","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816067539279,"sku":"L1013","price":4750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9052.jpg?v=1781795327"},{"product_id":"vergilius-maro-publius","title":"VERGILIUS MARO, Publius","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first collected edition of the works of Vergil in French, in the verse translation of Guillaume Michel de Tours for the Eclogues and Georgics and Octovien de Saint-Gelais for the Aeneid. The individual titles had been published in separate editions, all three of which are exceptionally rare; 'Les Eneydes' by Octovien de Saint-Gelais in 1509, 'Les Bucoliques' in 1516 and 'Les Georgicques' 1519 both by Guillaume Michel. This collection of the works was republished in 1532 and 1540. Both the translators were poets of some note, both Rhetoriqueurs, the name generally given to the group of poets active from approximately 1450 to 1530, between Villon and Clement Marot (including Chastellain, Meschonot, Molinet, Gringore, Cr étin, Jean Lemaire de Belges, Jean Marot, and Jean Bouchet, who was still writing in 1550). St.-Gelais and Michel shared an intense preoccupation with rhetoric; it was as 'l'art de seconde rh étorique' that they classified poetry. Both were prolific and extremely influential translators of classical texts. Octovien de Saint-Gelais had considerable, knowledge of the literature of antiquity, and an eagerness to display it, sometimes leading to an excessive use of Latinisms in pursuit of a high style. His work in general concentrates on purely formal devices, such as elaborate rhyme schemes (rimes l éonines, couronn ées, encha√Æn ées,  équivoqu ées), alliteration, puns, rebus, and other types of puzzles. All this is sometimes (inevitably) at the expense of clarity. The Rhetoriqueurs influence on Renaissance poetry, with all its formal experimentation, was considerable. Rabelais too, with his love of puns and lists, can be seen as a direct heir. There had been an earlier anonymous translation of The Aeneid published before Saint Gelais' but it was really a reworking of the text rather than a translation. \"Influenced by the philological impulse of the earlier Humanists, sixteenth-century translators are almost universally concerned to demonstrate the fidelity and accuracy of their versions. The prose 'remaniement' of Vergil, close to a romance, which appeared anonymously in 1483 was challenged in 1509 by the posthumous publication of Octavien de Saint-Gelais' verse translation composed with the intention 'to translate this book from its lofty distinguished Latin word-for-word and as closely as possible'.\" The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. The works of Vergil had been published numerous times in France but no edition was more influential on French Renaissance literature than this poetical translation that brought Vergil's work to a much wider audience. It was unequalled until Clement Marot's version was published in 1577.  Most, if not all, of the woodcuts used in this volume are incunable blocks from V érard's general stock, giving the work immense visual charm. The large and fine woodcut depicting an author at his desk that accompanies the prologue to the Aeneid had also been used by Couteau in 'La l égende des Flamens' in 1522. The present work is very rare, Renouard cites thirteen copies in public libraries worldwide (mostly in provincial France) but we have been able to locate far fewer and no copies at auction in the last thirty years. An important, rare and extremely influential work from the exceptional library of the Earls of Macclesfield.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VERGILIUS MARO, Publius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816068325711,"sku":"L871","price":14500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_00112.jpg?v=1781795325"},{"product_id":"epistolae-graecae","title":"EPISTOLAE GRAECAE","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lovely copy of this rare Aldine incunable, the editio princeps of the majority of the letters it contains, including the editio princeps of the letters of Plato and the first printing of any of his writings in the original Greek, edited by Marcus Musursus, perhaps the most influential figure in the progress of the Aldine Greek Press, and beautifully printed by the incomparable Aldus Manutius. Musurus brought together 35 authors in his extensive collection, ranging from Plato, Isocrates and Aeschines from antiquity to 4th-century authors such as Gregory of Nazianzus and later to Procopius of Gaza. Also included are Synesius, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, St. Basil, Phalaridis Tyranni, Bruti Romani, Apollonius of Tyana, and Julian Apostate (Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus); other letters are spurious or of doubtful authorship, such as those by Hippocrates and Euripides. The book is printed in Aldus's second and better Greek type (2:114), designed by Francesco Griffo da Bologna. In his dedication to Antonio Urceo Codro (1446-1500) professor of Greek and Latin at Bologna, Aldus states that he has set up in type whatever letters he could procure of some thirty-five Greek writers. A total of twenty six authors were published in these vols. Those that do not appear in this edition he reserved for a later publication, which was never realised. Letter-writing was an art and study allied to rhetoric, which formed part of a humanistic education, and compendia of letters circulated as model precedents. The letters published in this volume however are of interest far beyond mere examples of letter-writing. An example is Plato s seventh letter, the longest and most important. It is addressed to the associates and companions of Dion, most likely after his assassination in 353 BCE, in the form of an open letter, and contains a defence of Plato s political activities in Syracuse as well as a long digression concerning the nature of philosophy, the theory of the forms, and the problems inherent to teaching. Toward the end of the letter he gives an explanation of the perfect circle as an existing, unchanging, and eternal form, and explains how any reproduction of a circle is impossible. He suggests that the form of a perfect circle cannot even be discussed, because language and definition are inadequate. This collection was of great influence; Copernicus taught himself Greek using this work with the help of a Greek-Latin dictionary; the manuscript of his De Revolutionibus contains a suppressed passage from Lysis s letter to Hipparchus found in this collection. Introducing the text of the letter Copernicus mentions  Philolaus believed in the earth s motion.. (and) Aristarchus of Samos too held the same view . From 1493, Musurus was associated with Aldus Manutius and belonged to the Neacademia (Aldine Academy of Hellenists), a society founded by Manutius and other learned men for the promotion of Greek studies. Many of the Aldine classics were published under Musurus' supervision, and he is credited with the first editions of the scholia of Aristophanes (1498), Athenaeus (1514), Hesychius of Alexandria (1514) and Pausanias (1516). Musuros' handwriting reportedly formed the model of Aldus' Greek type. Works printed by Aldus Manutius have become synonymous with all that is best with  late fifteenth century and early sixteenth-century book production, particularly with typographical elegance and editorial quality and this rare and beautifully produced incunable is no exception. The Aldine Epistolae Graecae 'was not replaced by an equally useful collection until 1873, the date of R. Hercher's Epistolographi graeci' (Wilson, Byzantium to Italy, p.150). \u003cbr\u003e\n A fine copy with tremendous provenance; Bound for the 1st Duke of Sutherland (1758-1833), described by Charles Greville as a \"leviathan of wealth\" and \"...the richest individual who ever died\". Then in the collection of the great bibliophile Martin Bodmer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EPISTOLAE GRAECAE","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816070422863,"sku":"L1344","price":35000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8227.jpg?v=1781795323"},{"product_id":"livy-titus-and-sigonius-carolus","title":"LIVY, Titus [and] SIGONIUS, Carolus","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Sigonius  classic and handsome edition of Livy s monumental history of Rome and the first edition of his Scholia.  Livy s history begins with the landing of Aeneas in Italy and ends with the death of Drusus in 9BC though it was probably intended to continue to the death of Augustus.  Of the original 142 books, only 35 have come down to us and of these two are incomplete; nevertheless Livy remains the first authority for the history of ancient and Republican Rome down to the conquest of Macedonia in 167 BC.  It is a state history, military and political, arranged strictly chronologically, recounting all the major events with accounts of their principal participants.  Inevitably, given the extent of the ground covered there is little philosophical reflection, but the work is saved from being a dry recitation of fact by the author s considerable literary talents.  Livy s elegant Latin, masterly portraits of great men, impressive speeches and skilful depiction of the play of emotion made him a favourite with Roman readers equalled only by Cicero and Virgil.  His history, the greatest narrative history of antiquity, provided the groundwork of almost everything subsequently written on the subject and constituted a textbook for schoolboys from his day to modern times.  Sigonius  edition is the first in which scholarly criticism is applied to the chronology of Roman history was the best and most accurate of the day. Sigonius (1524-1584) was professor of literature at Venice and produced a number of works for the Aldine press   he was then the most significant classical scholar in Italy and probably rivalled only by Scaliger elsewhere.  Doubtless because of its size and consequent cost this edition is rare, and was almost unfindable in good condition, even by the mid C19.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LIVY, Titus [and] SIGONIUS, Carolus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816082186575,"sku":"L1518","price":3850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0223.jpg?v=1781795320"},{"product_id":"meursius-johannes","title":"MEURSIUS, Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition of this neo-pythagorian treatise on numbers by the renowned classicist Johannes Meursius in a lovely contemporary armorial binding from the extraordinary collection of Jacques Auguste de Thou. De Thou (1553-1617), scholar and historian, the greatest French book collector of his day, of whom it was long said that a man had not seen Paris who had not seen the library of de Thou. He of course died before 1631, but his son frequently added to his father s collection and continued to use the final form of his father s arms on the bindings of his acquisitions. Johanne Meurius (Van Meurs) was a Dutch classical scholar and antiquary. In 1610 he was appointed professor of Greek and history at Leiden, and in the following year historiographer to the States-General of the Netherlands. As a result of the upheavals caused by the eighty years war he accepted the offer, in 1625, of Christian IV of Denmark to become professor of history and politics at Soro, in Zealand, combined with the office of historiographer royal, in which role he produced a Latin history of Denmark (1630 38), Historia Danica. This rare and unusual neo-pythagorian work is a short treatise on the significance of numbers.  Photius, in his Bibliotheca, has preserved to us part of a valuable work, written by Nicomachus the Pythagorean, entitled Theological Arithmetic; in which he ascribes particular epithets, and the names of various divinities to numbers, as far as to ten. There is likewise a curious work of the same title, by an anonymous writer, which is extant only in manuscript. From these two, and from occasional passages respecting numbers according to Pythagoras, found in the Platonic writers, Meursius has composed a book, which he calls Denarius Pythagoricus; and which is an invaluable treatise to such as are studious of the ancient philosophy.  Thomas Taylor.  The hymns of Orpheus.  George J Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover, (1797-1833) was a British politician and man of letters. He was elected a Fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society in 1816. In 1824 Agar-Ellis was the leading promoter of the grant of ¬£57,000 for the purchase of John Angerstein s collection of pictures, which formed the foundation of the National Gallery. A very good copy with most distinguished provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MEURSIUS, Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816083628367,"sku":"L1529","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.30.22PM.png?v=1782581507"},{"product_id":"perotto-niccolo","title":"PEROTTO, Niccol√≤","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of the third Aldine edition of this monumental collection of grammars, including one of the most important Renaissance Latin dictionaries, by Niccolo Perroto, together with three influential classical grammars by Varro, Festus and Nonius Marcellus, dedicated to the condottiere Federico da Montefeltro of Urbino. Although the date 1513 is shown on the final colophon as if it was the second Aldine edition, this is in reality a reprint carried out in May 1517, as the colophon at the end of Perotti's work indicates (col 1064 [i.e. 1054]). The largest section of the work is taken up by Perroti s Cornucopia. Written as a commentary on book I of Martial, it includes a discussion on almost every word of Martial's text, becoming a standard work of reference on the Latin language.  a massive encyclopedia of the classical world. Every verse, indeed every word of Martial's text was a hook on which Perotti hung a densely woven tissue of linguistic, historical and cultural knowledge  Brian Ogilvie,  The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe.   The work was revised and expanded by Perotto's son Pyrrhus and the first edition was published in Venice by in 1489; the first Aldine in 1499. The text has been carefully numbered by page and by line so that the index can be precisely keyed, marking the inception of a modern scholarly system of reference. Niccol√≤ Perotto (1429-1480) was an Italian cleric and humanist, born and died in Sassoferrato. From 1451 to 1453 he taught rhetoric and poetry at the University of Bologna. In 1452 he was made Poet Laureate by the Emperor Frederick III, in acknowledgment of his speech of welcome to the city. He was the papal secretary from 1455 and archbishop of Siponto in 1458. Although his later career was as a papal governor, he continued his scholarly pursuits, editing the works of the Roman writers Pliny and Martial. Apart from his Cornucopia, he wrote a Latin school grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (Pannartz and Sweynheim 1473), one of the earliest and most popular Renaissance Latin grammars, which attempted to exclude many words and constructions of medieval origin. To the Cornucopia are added the three most important classical texts on the grammar and etymology of the Latin language.  Varro s treatise is the earliest extant work on Grammar. This great work which was finished before Cicero s death in 43 BC, owes much to the Stoic teaching of Aelius Stilo. .. The first three of the surviving books are on Etymology, book V being on names of places, VI on terms denoting time and VII on poetic expressions.  Sandys I p. 179. Sextus Pompeius Festus  epitome in 21 books of the encyclopedic treatise  De verborum significatione  of Valerius Flaccus is added next. Festus gives the etymology as well as the meaning of many words, and his work throws considerable light on the Latin language, mythology and antiquities of ancient Rome. The work ends with Nonius Marcellus s compendia. A lovely fresh copy of these important texts.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PEROTTO, Niccol√≤","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816085528911,"sku":"L1543","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_5651.jpg?v=1781795319"},{"product_id":"valerianus-joannes-pierius","title":"VALERIANUS, Joannes Pierius","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe first book printed by Blado in his signature Italic (its one or two predecessors were in old fashioned Gothic) and the first edition of this uncommon cosmographical\/astrological text. Valerianus (1477-1558) from a poor noble family studied at Venice under Valla and Lascarius before being taken up by Pope Leo X and entrusted with the education of his nephews. He continued in the service of the Medici until the late 1530 s when he returned to study and write. This is Valerianus  first published work. Dedicated to Giulio de' Medici, the present work  on the meaning of storms , discusses both their scientific causes and their influence as portents on human affairs, including a particularly interesting account of the cosmography of the Etruscans, as well as Roman soothsayers whose purpose was to interpret thunder and lightning as omens. For example he tells the story of the lightning which struck the gates of Florence, interpreted as auguring the election of one of its citizens to the Pontificate. Valerianus also produced a popular and successful edition of the Sphaera of Sacrobosco. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Antonio Blado, official printer to the Papacy from 1535 to 1567, and one of the greatest printers of 16th century Italy, acquired in 1537 the celebrated Italic type of the calligrapher Lodovico Arrighi, used here by him 10 years earlier. It is one of the most elegant and famous typefaces of all time and interesting to compare with the Aldine developed in Venice at roughly the same time. Apart from its beauty it is clear, simple and easy to read. All 16th century printing on vellum is rare, and in the field of science, almost unknown. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Sir John Heyford Thorold (1773-1831) was a truly great collector. From 1828 until his death, he built up in an incredibly short time a beautiful collection of incunables and Aldines , deRicci p 160. Thence to the incomparable scientific library of Robert B. Honeyman (sale May 1981).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VALERIANUS, Joannes Pierius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816090640719,"sku":"L1563","price":45000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1563-2.jpg?v=1781795316"},{"product_id":"horace","title":"HORACE","description":"Claimed by Dibdin (Introduction to the Greek \u0026amp; Latin Classics, 4th edition volume II p. 108) and later bibliographers to be a  Second issue  on account of the misprint  post est  (in volume II, p. 108) having been corrected to  potest . However, the most striking difference between copies of this issue and the copies of the claimed first issue is the paper quality, which is much superior in this issue than in the other.\r \r The printing of this extraordinary set of volumes has raised the curiosity of many writers. From Pine s own Latin introduction, we know that the text was first composed in lead, then page by page printed on non-absorbent paper from which the transfer to copperplates was made. The impressions of the letterforms, then, were traced with acid or gravers and the plates were etched\/ engraved together with the vignettes and other decorations that fill each page.\r \r We may assume that Pine wished to keep the printing forms for possible later editions, and also wanted to have complete control over his work at a time when copyright was much debated and was still only being considered for protection by law. A copyright law was passed a few years later (1734-5. 8th George II). A clean and very nice copy.","brand":"HORACE","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816094146895,"sku":"X33","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2024-08-06-at-14.40.36.webp?v=1781795313"},{"product_id":"lockhart-j-g","title":"LOCKHART, J. G.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe first edition was published in 1841 ( The first time of the true  Illuminated Books  [Ruari McLean, Victorian Book Design, p. 154]). A good copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LOCKHART, J. G.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816098603343,"sku":"X46","price":450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Lockhart-2.jpg?v=1781795312"},{"product_id":"manutius-paulus","title":"MANUTIUS, Paulus","description":"\u003cp\u003eExpanded edition, revised and corrected of Manutius' celebrated commentary on the 16 books of Cicero's letters to his closest friend T. Pomponius Atticus and the starting point of all modern editions of the text. Written over the course of many years from 65BC onwards and compiled by Cicero's personal secretary Marcus Tullius Tiro, the letters are frequently written in a subtle code to mask their political content. In his impressively detailed commentary Manutius is clearly aware of this, discussing the implications of certain names and places thoroughly, explaining their relationships to each other and explaining historical and social significance as appropriate. A valuable edition in a fine copy. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n \"Perhaps the most valuable of Cicero's surviving works are the letters, such a vivid commentary on the last years of the Roman Republic as we have of no other period of ancient times. Here alone, devoid of formality, the character of Cicero can be seen.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANUTIUS, Paulus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816107417935,"sku":"L802","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/2013-11-27-23.11.42.jpg?v=1781795310"},{"product_id":"athenaeus","title":"ATHENAEUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eProbably the only copy combining the Editio Princeps with the first Latin edition. Written in Rome in the early 2nd century, the work provides a unique insight into the moneyed classes during the Hellenistic literary world of the Roman Empire.  A vast variety of erudition has been preserved by Athenaeus of Naucratis, who lived at Rome under Commodus and his successors. His comprehensive work 'Doctors at Dinner' originally consisted of thirty books. It was abridged into fifteen, and it is this abridgement that has survived in an incomplete form in a single ms. The scene is laid at the house of the Roman pontiff Larentius, and all kinds of accomplishments - grammar, poetry, rhetoric, music, philosophy and medicine - are represented among the many interlocutors. It is an encyclopaedia under the disguise of a dialogue. Food and drink, cups and cookery, stories of famous banquets, scandalous anecdotes, specimens of ancient riddles and drinking songs and disquisitons on instruments of music are only part of the miscellaneous fare which is here provided. We are indebted to the quotations in Athenaeus for our knowledge of passages from about 700 ancient writers who would otherwise be unknown to us, and, in particular, for the preservation of the greater part of the extant remains of the Middle and the New Attic comedy.  Sandys I:337. An important source of Classical Greek recipes, including the original text of the oldest recipe by a named author, Mithaecus, in any language, it also describes in detail different kinds of wine, categorizing them by place and origin and compares their characteristics, properties and effects. Sexual mores constitute another conversational focus, with pederasty discussed without restraint, including details of boy-lovers famed for their beauty and skill. In addition come insights into music, literary gossip and philology, as well as the stories behind the creation of many artworks and amusing stories. An invaluable resource for social historians. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Originating from Naucratis in Egypt, Athenaeus was a Greek rhetorician and grammarian, who flourished at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd C. Deipnosophistae is his only extant work, though he mentions other works on the history of the Syrian kings and on fish.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ATHENAEUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816119869775,"sku":"L674","price":29500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage2.png?v=1781795298"},{"product_id":"justinus-with-gellius-aulus","title":"JUSTINUS [with] GELLIUS, Aulus","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very clean and wide-margined copy of two Venetian incunables in a strictly contemporary and very attractive Renaissance binding. The second work notably features a fine instance of the kind of large Greek type used in the 1480s, illustrated by Proctor, who praised it for 'the regularity and size which make it the best type of its class' (p.127). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Justinus was a second century Roman historian. This, his most notable work, he describes as a collection of the most interesting and important passages from Pompeius Trogus' 'Historiae philippicae et totius mundi origina et terrae situs', written in the time of Augustus and now lost. This was a general history of those parts of the world that had come under the auspices of Alexander the Great, and takes as its main theme the Macedonian Empire founded by his father Philip. The last event it records (in Justinius' version) is in 20 B.C. Through his frequent digressions, Justinus here produces not an epitome but rather a useful and sometimes elegant anthology based on the work. It was very popular in the Middle Ages, when the author was frequently confused with Justin Martyr. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Noctes Atticae consists of a miscellaneous anthology on various topics, including philosophy, law, literature, grammar, and history. Gellius (c. 125 - c. 180) wrote the book for the education of his children during his winter nights in Attica, and the work proved very popular into and throughout the Middle Ages. It grew out of a commonplace book that Gellius kept, in which he recorded items of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read about. The book deliberately has no specific structure, and of the twenty books only 19 have come down to us - the 8th is known only through its index. In it, Gellius quotes extensively from Greek and Latin authors, many of whose works have not survived - the book is therefore a valuable resource in preserving fragments of writings otherwise entirely lost. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding, although elements of its decoration are common to several printing centres in Italy at this time, bears a strong resemblance to a number of bindings known to have been produced at Venice (and in particular to de Marinis' no. 1532 in vol II of his 'Legatura Artistica in Italia'). In its decoration it shows elements of the assimilation of Eastern design in Italian bookbinding, especially by the Byzantine\/Ottoman nature of the central knotwork tools. It must previously have been very grand, and shows evidence of elegant and arabesque furniture at the corners and at the centre of the covers. The furniture would most likely have been bronze or silver; the remaining studs holding the stubs of the ties are in bronze. The binding is still an elegant example of Renaissance bookbinding craftsmanship and examples in this condition and are invariably rare.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JUSTINUS [with] GELLIUS, Aulus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120459599,"sku":"L446","price":14500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L446-8.jpg?v=1781795294"},{"product_id":"varro-m-terentius","title":"VARRO, M. Terentius","description":"\u003cp\u003eA rare edition from an almost equally rare press; the identity of the printer is unknown, the style of his Greek type may indicate he came from Venice; the total known output of the press is only six titles, however the layout and typeface are handsome and accomplished. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n An early edition of Varro s pioneering work on Latin grammar (including inflexion and syntax) or more accurately of books V to X (of 25) which are all that have come down to us. It was regarded as a work of considerable importance by no lesser authorities than Cicero (the dedicatee), Quintilian and St Augustine, who wonders at the author s learning in the De Civ. Dei, book VI; the text was edited for the press by Pompinius Laetus and Francisus Rolandellus and first printed in that form by an unknown press in Venice in 1478. It has a comprehensive index.  Varro s treatise is the earliest extant Roman work on grammar. This great work, which was finished before Cicero s death in 43 BC, owes much to the stoic teaching of Aelius Stilo, and also to that of a later grammarian who combined the Stoic and Alexandrian traditions. The first three of the surviving books are on Etymology, book V being on names of places, VI on terms denoting time and VII on poetic expressions. To ourselves the value of these books lies in their citations from the Latin poets, and not in their marvellous etymologies. The next three books are concerned with the controversy on Analogy and Anomaly: VIII on the arguments against Analogy, IX on those against Anomaly and X on Varro s own view of Analogy , Sandys I p.179. Of Varro s vast literary output his three books  De Rustica  is the only other survivor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VARRO, M. Terentius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120820047,"sku":"L276","price":5950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L276-7.jpg?v=1781795292"},{"product_id":"comicorum-graecorum","title":"COMICORUM GRAECORUM","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis little book,  pusillus liber  as Estienne terms it in his dedication, contrasting it with his great folio of the epic poets printed in 1566, is nonetheless important in content. It contains sententiae (gnomai in Greek), culled from plays written by Menander et al., promoters of the New Comedy that came into fashion in the third century B.C. In the sixteenth century, such sententiae were collected and cultivated as suitable for quotations in speech and writing, and little collections such as this were very convenient for busy men of affairs; indeed blank pages were left so that further sententiae could be added by the reader, a point made at the end of the section on the playwright Philemon (pp. 316-417). The work consists of chapters, each devoted to a different New Comedy playwright (Alexis, Apollodorus, Diphilus i.a.), with by far the longest given to Menander, probably because more of his work survived - albeit in fragments - than any of the others . A short biographical introduction by Gregorio Giraldi precedes a list of sententiae taken from each author, the original Greek followed by a Latin translation and explanation. An alphabetical list of subjects - e.g. friendship and drunkenness - are followed by suitable sententiae (for laughter:  malum grave est ridere non in tempore ), mostly taken from Menander. Henri Estienne s own notes on the interpretation of the sententiae follow, with examples from Latin comic playwrights, such as Plautus, author of the Asinaria, some of whom are only known in this fragmentary form. Those from Publius Syrius are again organised by subject. \u003cbr\u003e\n Greek New Comedy largely differed from the Old Comedy of e.g. Aristophanes by its focus on middle-class Athenian life and the comedy of social errors. The plays are populated by a stock cast of foolish young men, wily slaves, kind-hearted prostitutes, and put-upon fathers. The Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence were responsible for translating the Greek works into Latin. Most of the surviving fragments of New Comedy have come down to us through collections of sententiae such as this; happily some larger fragments have recently been discovered on papyri.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"COMICORUM GRAECORUM","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816121934159,"sku":"L1849","price":1450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0005.jpg?v=1781795289"},{"product_id":"eutropius","title":"EUTROPIUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe impressive contemp. calf binding of this copy strongly resembles Oldham HM23  only one example is known  and is almost certainly English, though  many of the panels used in England no doubt came from the Netherlands  (Oldham p. 20). The text itself consists of a brief summary - the Epitome - of the Gallic Wars, taken from Suetonius  iconic work. Eutropius was a late Roman historian and secretary (magister memoriae) at Constantinople. Written in a straightforward narrative style, with none of the syntactical twists and turns of Suetonius  original Latin, the text rattles through the most important campaigns waged by Julius Caesar during the Gallic and Civil Wars, moving on to his Dictatorship and death at the hands of the Senate in only a few pages. This is followed by notes on the Commentary on Caesar s Gallic and Civil Wars, by Henricus Glareanus: these consist of short summaries of each book and explanations of any obscure place names or peoples (e.g. the tribe known as the Sedusi who, Glareanus tells us,  non sunt Seduni see Germani , referencing Pliny 4.17. Glareanus also explains, with a diagram, Caesar s battle formation, and the various numbers of his troops. The work ends with four alphabetical indexes: the first refers back to Glareanus  annotations on the commentary, the second gives the French equivalents of Roman place names and tribes mentioned in Caesar s text; the third, longer notes on these places and tribes, and the fourth is an index of Caesar s text itself. This beautifully bound edition must have been a very handy condensed textbook for any student of Caesar who had neither the time nor the inclination for the original work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EUTROPIUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816122032463,"sku":"L1853","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot2026-06-27at6.47.34PM.png?v=1782582521"},{"product_id":"catullus-tibullus-propertius","title":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond, improved Colines edition, derived from the Aldine by Aldus the elder and Jer. Avancio. Each beginning with biographical extracts from the Florentine Petro Crinito's guide to the Latin poets, the work is divided into three sections, respectively comprising Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius. The first comprises the complete works of Catullus, (c.84-54 BC), 117 poems ranging in scope from the famous two-lined 'odi et amo' to the vigorous obscenities of poem 16, when Catullus wrathfully proclaims: \"Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi\". The second presents four books which are attributed to Tibullus (c. 54-19 BC), (probably only the first two are genuine), including elegies to his first love Delia, his patron Messala, the god Priapus, and to his last love, the courtesan 'Nemesis'. Book three is attributable by internal evidence to the otherwise obscure Lygdamus, while book 4, thought to have been completed only in the 16th C, begins with a discourse on Messala's achievements, followed by poems telling of the love of his sister Sulpicia and Cerinthus. The section concludes with a passage about the death of Tibullus, drawn from Ovid. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Section three presents the four books of Propertius (c.50-14BC); the first is a passionate love elegy to 'Cynthia', a unique work that documents the affair as it progresses, and which gained Propertius immediate fame as an innovative poet. Further poems to Cynthia with more general musings on love follow, while the third book - marking the end of the affair - diversifies into avarice, death and new friends. Book four explains the origin of various Roman rites and landmarks, and discusses the great seabattle of Actium.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816122458447,"sku":"L854","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L854.jpg?v=1781795287"},{"product_id":"caesar-caius-julius","title":"CAESAR, Caius Julius","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn early edition of Ortica's translation, first recorded in 1517, which dominated the Italian market in the first half of the C16. In this edition the translation is still apparently unfinished, after Book VI Ortica includes a letter apologising for omitting his version of Book VII, which was imperfect and interrupted. The history of Caesar's military campaigns in Gaul, Spain, Africa, Egypt and the Civil Wars, with their terse style and lively narrative, have, in their Latin original, been a perennial favorite with schoolmasters. In the vernacular the book could be used as a crib, and at the beginning the translator provides a vocabulary of Latin and Italian place names, explaining that it is so short because he has not had more time, with all the work of translating, transcribing and having the edition printed; he promises that his versions of the Lives of Plutarch and Helius Spatianus, which he is in the process of writing, will have longer lists. The travails of the C16 literary hack! \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The three half-page illustrations of siege engines, the \"vinea\", the \"ariete\" and the \"testudine\", and the one of the bridge half-constructed in the middle of the Rhine, which all follow the vocabulary, are very jolly. \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding is curious. It is C16 Italian morocco but over bds of the thickness we would normally associate only with pigskin. Did the binder or his client have a change of heart half way? Is it a provincial production of the far north Italian where German style bindings were more common? Were there once many bindings like this but very few survivors?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAESAR, Caius Julius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816124064079,"sku":"SN2392","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Caesar-2392-1-copy.jpg?v=1781795282"},{"product_id":"plutarch","title":"PLUTARCH","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very handsome copy of this most influential translation of Plutarch’s Morals by the great French translator Jacques Amyot, from the exceptional library of the English diarist John Evelyn. The Moralia of the 1st-century Greek scholar Plutarch of Chaeronea is an eclectic collection of 78 essays and transcribed speeches, that give tremendous insight into Roman and Greek life, but often are also timeless observations in their own right. They include such disparate subjects as ‘On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander the Great” an important adjunct to his Life of the great general “On the Worship of Isis and Osiris”, and ‘On the Malice of Herodotus’ along with more philosophical treatises, such as ‘On the Decline of the Oracles’, ‘On the Delays of the Divine Vengeance’, ‘On Peace of Mind’ and lighter fare, such as ‘Odysseus and Gryllus’, a humorous dialog between Homer’s Odysseus and one of Circe’s enchanted pigs. The work also includes ten books on the customs of the table, with much on food and wine.\u003cbr\u003e\nJacques Amyot (1513-1594), was tutor to the sons of Henry II (the future Charles IX and Henri III), later a professor at the University of Bourges, ‘Grand Aumonier de France’ and then Bishop of Auxerre,which he turned into an important centre for humanism. He translated the works of Plutarch on the recommendation of Francis I. These translations had considerable impact, not only for their rediscovery of antiquity and of Plutarch, but on the French language itself. Montaigne wrote of these works “Nous autres, ignorants, étions perdus si ce livre ne nous eût relevés du bourbier… C’est notre bréviaire”. He was not just a able translator but his goal was different to the writers of the Pleiade in that he was concerned with reaching a wide, non scholarly audience, and not with hellenistic turns of phrase. He brought French translation into a new era. The works were very successful, appearing in at least five editions within ten years of the first printing, and had huge influence, particularly on Montaigne. Montaigne started working on his ‘Essais’ at roughly the same time as the first edition of Amyot’s translation appeared. Montaigne most often cited his sources, though not always; the first four lines of his Essai “Coutumes de l’île de Cea” open with four sentences copied exactly from Amyot’s translation. Of all the authors of antiquity the one that most palpably influenced Montaigne was Plutarch and in this translation by Amyot. This edition also had a direct influence on the final monumental edition of Montaigne’s Essais edited by Madame de Gournay, copying its format and layout.\u003cbr\u003e\nFrom the library of the famous diarist John Evelyn, 1620-1706 (his sale, Christie’s, 16 March 1978, lot 1197). Evelyn was a scholar, connoisseur, bibliophile and horticulturalist, as well as a writer and thinker of sometimes startlingly current relevance. By his death his library is known to have comprised 3,859 books and 822 pamphlets, the major part of which was dispersed at Christie’s in eight sales in 1977 and 1978. Evelyn (1620-1706) was a central figure of English intellectual life for some half a century and his diaries are one of the greatest resources for the period. His breadth of scholarly interests was reflected in his fine and extensive library.\u003cbr\u003e\nThe acquisition note at the head of pastedown maybe that of John Evelyn’s father, Richard the gunpowder magnate of Wotton Surrey.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PLUTARCH","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816126095695,"sku":"L1856","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0105.jpg?v=1781795278"},{"product_id":"cicero-marcus-tullius","title":"CICERO, Marcus Tullius","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very rare and most attractive copy of Cicero's letters, beautifully printed in an elegant minuscule Italic by Simon de Colines, in a fine contemporary Parisian gilt tooled binding. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  First Colines pocket edition of Cicero s  Epistolae familiares', a rare book of which we were unable to locate another copy. [Schreiber s copy is also very incomplete, ending with book VIII] Renouard, whose note for this edition is particularly garbled and incomplete, states that this was the only Colines imprint to bear Henri (sic) Estienne s device. The text was overseen by Claude Chaudière, Regnault s son. In the preface Claude emphasises his position as Colines' grandson on his mothers side, and the care he has taken in establishing the text. After Colines  death, in 1546, Regnault and Claude were to take over the printing house.  Schreiber. Renouard had probably never seen a copy as there is no sign of Estienne s device. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Surprisingly, the work is particularly rare. We have located four copies on worldcat only, at Illinois, North Carolina, Glasgow and the Danish Nat. Lib.; the BNF does not have it and none are recorded in Italian libraries. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding is quite sumptuous for a pocket edition, almost certainly from Paris, and is similar in style, though on a miniature scale, to bindings of the same period by Claude De Piques, see British library Catalogue of Bindings shelfmark c20c15 and c48c2. s \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Written over the course of many years from 65 B.C. onwards and compiled by Cicero's personal secretary Tiro, the letters are often written in a subtle code to disguise particular political contents. The work is made up of Cicero s letters to his friends, acquaintances and also their replies, there is one to a conspirator in Caesar s murder,  I congratulate you. I rejoice for myself. I love you. I watch your interests; I wish for your love and to be informed of what you are doing and what is being done,  ( Fam. vi. 15). We know from others that Cicero thought about publishing some of his letters during his lifetime, but it is generally agreed that the Ad Familiares were published by Cicero s friend Tiro, who suppressed his own letters and included those written to him at the end. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Cicero s letters are among the most valuable sources of information on the period, we learn from him a great deal about daily life in Rome and the provinces, especially the province of Cilicia of which Cicero was sometime governor. There is no other period of antiquity for which we still possess such an immediate and intimate record and in such domestic detail.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CICERO, Marcus Tullius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127340879,"sku":"L1852","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/frontcover_56b3a2cf-6629-4b3f-8e20-12206ae0e7be.png?v=1781795275"},{"product_id":"dionysius-periegetes-1","title":"DIONYSIUS Periegetes","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the original Greek text of Dionysius, first edition of the Latin translation of Remmius Palaemon and first edition of the commentary and additions of Celio Calcignini: the whole was edited by the printer, together with Ludovicus Bonaciolus. Dionysius, fl. probably in Alexandria in the first century B.C., produced this elegant and terse description of the habitable world in Greek hexameters. It was probably intended as a school geography, and certainly was used as such in the ancient world; it achieved great popularity as one of the earliest descriptions of far away places, both in antiquity and again, in translation, in the first decades of printing.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DIONYSIUS Periegetes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816128454991,"sku":"L2135","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2135-Dionysius-733.jpg?v=1781795269"},{"product_id":"greek-thesaurus","title":"GREEK THESAURUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of the first edition of Aldus' collection of grammatical works for students of ancient Greek, including many previously unpublished essays such as those of the Homeric commentator Eustathius of Thessalonica. This  Treasure of abundance  was one of the founding pieces of the Aldine printing programme, devised in the first place to spread the knowledge of Greek in Italy and the rest of Europe. It consists of a well-considered selection of writings and lexicons by Byzantine Greek grammarians, referring especially to the Homeric poems. In compiling this book, Aldus was helped by exceptionally skilled teachers of the subject, like Urbano Bolzanio (1442-1524), Arsenios Apostolios (1465-1535), Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494) and Poliziano s pupils Guarino Favorino (1450-1537) and Scipione Carteromaco (1466-1515). Aldus  Latin preface to  every scholar  is of great interest. Not only does it provide key evidence for dating the beginning of his own activity   he states that he has worked for 7 years with barely an hour of solid rest  , but it also announces what was to be his most famous achievement, the complete Greek edition of Aristotle s works. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy bears six corrections made in the Aldine workshop straight after printing. Only two of them have been already recorded and concern the very last words of ff. 197r and 207r, which were crossed out with a pen stroke. A third and more extensive emendation involves the declension of the term  shame , as illustrated in the second essay of the collection (f. 6v). The passage was expunged and the manuscript internal reference to leaves 268 (  268 ) added instead. A couple of lines above, a vowel was amended twice in the same word and an accent and a subscribed iota were added. The faulty numeration of leaves 187, 188 and 213 was also consistently rectified, alongside the incorrect  K  in the title of f. 227r, replaced with    . These corrections were made in many copies of this edition, but often have been washed out or even deliberately erased as insignificant marginalia, even the most important one   that in f. 6v with the internal reference in Greek.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GREEK THESAURUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816130945359,"sku":"K47","price":37500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8128.jpg?v=1781795262"},{"product_id":"strabo","title":"STRABO","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the original text of one of the earliest and most influential geographical surveys of Antiquity. Scion of a prominent family of the Pontus region, Strabo (64\/63 BC-c. 25 AD) travelled extensively through Southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East, mostly during the peaceful reign of Augustus. The Geography is his only surviving work and the first comprehensive account of the subject as known to his contemporaries. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The topography, geology, history and political features of the main regions of the Roman world are thoroughly described, relying on first-hand investigation and many Greek sources now lost, such as the writings of the first systematic geographer, Eratosthenes (c.276- 195\/4 BC), and of Hipparchus (c.190-120 BC). Above all, however, Strabo regards Homer as the most authoritative writer. Strabo s descriptions of the Mediterranean regions, Asia Minor and Egypt are excellent, while those of Gaul and Britain are weaker. Almost unknown to the Romans, the Latin version of the Geography became the standard geographical reference work during the Middle Ages. Among many other significant remarks and hypotheses, Strabo was the first scholar to discuss in detail fossil formation and vulcanism (both in Book 3). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This editio princeps   beautifully enriched with section titles, capitals and head-pieces printed in red (an unusual feature for the Aldine press)   was accomplished by Benedetto Tirreno and Andrea Torresani, most likely with the help of Marco Musuro; the dedication to Alberto Pio of Carpi bears a touching encomium of Aldus, recently passed away. The text was drawn from a rather corrupted manuscript, now in the BnF (Par. gr. 1395). The enterprise was wholeheartedly encouraged by Jean Grolier, who urged Torresani to continue editing and publishing Greek and Latin classics, as Aldus had done throughout his career.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"STRABO","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816131404111,"sku":"K49","price":55000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8158.jpg?v=1781795261"},{"product_id":"catullus-tibullus-and-propertius-with-juvenal-and-persius","title":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS [with] JUVENAL and PERSIUS","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine volume with two clean and remarkable editions of Latin classic poetry. The first is an early reprint of the 1502 ground-breaking Aldine edition in octavo of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, who were, together with Ovid, the main lyric poets of the first century BC. In their innovative verses, they focused on personal matters and day-to-day images, dwelling on the passionate feeling for their lovers. This is the first edition published by Simon de Colines (c.1480 -1546), a highly skilled printer who was trained by Henry Estienne, led the Estienne workshop until Robert entered the business in 1526 and then became an independent and distinguished publisher in Paris. He was renowned for the beauty of his Roman, Greek and Italic fonts, often modelled on Aldus s types. In this book, he employed the famous Saint Augustin flourished italics. The second part of the volume comprises an exceptionally bright copy of the genuine 1501 Aldine edition of two masters of Latin satire, Juvenal (c.55-127 AD) and Persius (34-62 AD). This publication (not to be confused with an almost identical imprint issued some twelve years later by the Aldine) was the fourth ever printed classic in the renowned octavo series with Griffo s italic font, soon after Virgil, Petrarch and Horace. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The book has an interesting early English provenance connected to the seventeenth-century academia in Oxford. Henry Bracegirdle bought it in Oxford on 6 December 1660 and then read it over and over, drafting marginalia extensively throughout and compiling a detailed index of topics; this suggests he used the book for his university studies and perhaps as source of inspiration for his own writing. He must be the BA who graduated at Merton College in 1667, the son of Richard Bracegirdle from Wolverhampton and the owner of two manuscript miscellanies of English poetry (Cambridge, King s College, Hayward Collection, H. 11. 13-14). Below Bracegirdle s price note, one can see another seventeenth-century inscription ( Ed. Palmer e Coll. Reg. Oxon. ) written by probably the subsequent owner of the book, that is Edward Palmer, son of Sir William of Warden in Bedfordshire, BA at Queen s College in 1668 and poet. In 1667, he published An elegy on the death of Mr. James Bristow, late fellow of All-souls (A. Wood and P. Bliss, Fasti Oxonienses, II, London 1820, p. 301). The sale of his library was advertised in 1681 (cf. ESTC, R221392).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, TIBULLUS and PROPERTIUS [with] JUVENAL and PERSIUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816134451535,"sku":"L2265","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2265-1-1.jpg?v=1781795215"},{"product_id":"dionysius-periegetes-and-pomponius-mela","title":"DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES and POMPONIUS MELA","description":"\u003cp\u003eAccurate edition of the two important geographical texts of antiquity, used for centuries as textbooks on the subject. Dionysius Periegetes (2nd century AC) was a Greek poet, who epitomised in verse the geographical knowledge of his time, exerting great influence over Roman and medieval scholarship through the Latin transpositions of his work made by Avenius and Priscian. Pomponius Mela (died c.45 AD) was the most prominent of Latin geographers, largely employed as an authoritative source by Pliny in the geographical section of his Historia naturalis. Following coastlines, Mela provides a ground-breaking description of Western Europe and British Isles, though less detailed as regards Asia and Africa than his Greek colleagues, especially Strabo. With the help of his brother-in-law, the brilliant humanist Isaac Causabon (1559-1614), Henri Estienne made relevant additions and improvements to previous editions, including his father s. The volume also includes Aethicus s Cosmographia, Solinus s Polyhistor and Eustathius of Thessalonika s commentaries on Periegetes, as well as a detailed annotations on the Greek text by Estienne himself and other scholars.  The Greek ex libris pasted on title ( from the [books] of Blancardus ) is a special mark of affection for the book from its owner. It is notoriously difficult to date these printed slips, but the typeface and ageing of paper suggest this label is c. 17th. As the owner was clearly a scholar of the Greek language, the only plausible  Blancardus  is Nikolaas Blankaart (1624-1703), who commonly used the Latin transliteration of his surname. A talented Dutch classicist educated in Leiden under the supervision of Salmasius, Blankaart edited Florus, Curtius Rufus and Arrian along with some dictionaries and repertoires of Byzantine grammarians. He is reported to have drawn maps of Asia, Europe and Africa relying on ancient sources (D. van Hoogstraten, Groot algemeen woorden-boek, II, 1725, p. 269), with this book almost certainly playing a crucial role in the endeavour.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DIONYSIUS PERIEGETES and POMPONIUS MELA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816134484303,"sku":"L2094b","price":1750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2090-Dionysius-1-e1466262078303.jpg?v=1781795213"},{"product_id":"pliny-caecilius-secundus-gaius","title":"PLINY, Caecilius Secundus, Gaius","description":"\u003cp\u003eA finely bound copy of this rare edition of the letters of Pliny edited by Issac Casaubon with tremendous early North American provenance; from the library of Jean-Baptiste de La Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, with his arms as Bishop of Quebec and Nouvelle France. He was the second Bishop of Qu ébec and Nouvelle France, and served from 1685-1727, over forty years, at one of the most critical periods of the provinces history. The binding is probably contemporary to the printing so Saint-Vallier s arms and the cover gilding were almost certainly added after 1688 when he was officially consecrated as Bishop, perhaps even during his time in North America, and most probably well before 1713 when he gave up the Bishop s Palace and retreated to the Hopital General to live in a single room with few belongings - though including a few shelves of books. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  In 1684 Abb é Saint-Vallier was 31 and already his appointment to a see in France was generally anticipated. At that time his spiritual director, the Jesuit Father Le Valois.. spoke to him of the see of Quebec. The incumbent of the see, Bishop Laval, was thinking of resigning. He proposed to come to France to ask Louis XIV to choose a successor for him. Would Abb é Saint-Vallier agree to be this successor? An ambitious priest would certainly have refused. Created just ten years before, situated two or three months  sailing time from France, burdened with a harsh climate, the diocese of Quebec in 1684 was perhaps the most wretched and difficult of all the dioceses in mission lands. It was immense, taking in the greater part of the territories that had already been explored in North America: Newfoundland, Acadia, the valley of the St Lawrence, the region of the Great Lakes, and even the whole of the valley of the Mississippi, which Cavelier de La Salle had just traversed down to its mouth. This diocese on a continental scale was on the other hand scarcely populated. And what diocesans! Nine out of ten were Indians, who were almost completely refractory to Christianity and who were on the brink of resuming the offensive against the French. In the midst of these Indians there was a handful of French settlers, barely more than 10,000. Abb é Saint-Vallier s first sojourn in Canada lasted 18 months. Despite his lack of training the young priest astonished the clergy by his endurance and his zeal. First he visited Quebec, next all the parishes along the St Lawrence, and finally Montreal. Then, following the inland rivers and lakes, he went with two priests and a small escort to distant Acadia. He left in the spring of 1686 without even waiting for the break-up of the ice. They went from river to river, from lake to lake. Sometimes they had to break the ice to get the canoes through. At one time they thought they would die of starvation. Then came the summer, the unbearable mosquito bites, the humid heat. Everywhere they met Frenchmen or Indians, Abb é Saint-Vallier preached, catechized, rebuked, praised. He ate little, scarcely slept, and worked unceasingly. When he returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1686 he even thought of going inland as far as the Great Lakes. . DCB. This small pocket size volume may well have accompanied the Bishop on his many travels in Quebec and Nouvelle France. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good edition, finely printed by Paul Estienne in this miniature format, of the Estienne text of the Younger Pliny's Letters with the notes of Issac Casaubon. (Who was Paul Estienne s brother in law.). Dibdin describes the various edns., first printed in 1591, as 'elegant and valuable . This particular edition seems to be one of the rarest, with worldcat locating two copies only, one at the BNF and one at Harvard. It is not mentioned in any of the usual bibliographies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PLINY, Caecilius Secundus, Gaius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816135303503,"sku":"L2340","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_2064-e1520956141781.jpg?v=1781795211"},{"product_id":"lucan-m-anneus","title":"LUCAN, M. Anneus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe beautifully printed first Estienne edition of Lucan's Pharsalia, his epic poem on the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar, printed in the exceptional Garamond italic, which was then still innovative, having first appeared only in 1543. Claude Garamond's italic type was designed for Robert Estienne in imitation of the Aldine italic, which it surpassed in beauty and readability. Although Robert Estienne was made Royal printer in Greek in 1539 he continued to produce many  pocket  editions of the Latin classics of this kind and they came to form the backbone of his printing practice.  The actual texts of the Latin classics, on the other hand, were now much more prominent in his lists. It was during this period (1539 -1550) that he published two complete sets of the works of Cicero, as well as a considerable number of separate works.   The years 1544-5 produced Juvenal and Persius, Lucan and Horace in the same  pocket  form..  Elizabeth Armstrong.  Robert Estienne, Royal Printer.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Lucan's account of the Civil Wars between Caesar and Pompey was considered in the Middle Ages superior to Virgil (a view held later by Shelley and Southey). The poem was begun around 61 AD and several books were in circulation before the Emperor Nero and Lucan had a bitter falling out. Lucan continued to work on the epic, despite Nero's prohibition against any publication of Lucan's poetry, and it was left unfinished when Lucan was compelled to commit suicide as part of the Pisonian conspiracy in 65 AD. A total of ten books were written and all survive; the tenth book breaks off abruptly with Caesar in Egypt. Events throughout the poem are described in terms of insanity and sacrilege. Most of the main characters are terribly flawed and unattractive; Caesar is cruel and vindictive, while Pompey is ineffective and uninspiring. Far from glorious, the battle scenes are portraits of bloody horror, where nature is ravaged to build terrible siege engines and wild animals tear mercilessly at the flesh of the dead \u003cbr\u003e\n Lucan s continued place in contemporary reading is well-evidenced by the many fine editions printed after the Aldine editio princeps, of which this is a good example. The author was to have an important influence in the next century on Corneille, and thus classical French drama.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LUCAN, M. Anneus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816136843599,"sku":"L2377","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4732-e1504181579131.jpg?v=1781795203"},{"product_id":"junius-hadrianus","title":"JUNIUS, Hadrianus","description":"\u003cp\u003eExcellent edition of this important polyglot dictionary, finely printed in Geneva by Jacob Stoer, and edited by Hermann Germberg. The arrangement is alphabetical by topic, then alphabetically within each topic; polyglot entires are arranged under Latin terms, with preliminaries in Latin. Hadrianus Junius (1511 1575), also known as Adriaen de Jonghe, was a Dutch physician, classical scholar, translator, lexicographer, antiquarian, historiographer, emblematist, school rector, and Latin poet. He attended both the Crown Prince of Denmark and the Duke of Norfolk, and was singled out by Lipsius as the most learned Dutchman after Erasmus. This polyglot dictionary was Junius  most successful and influential book, often re-edited with many further adaptions. It is thematic, and especially strong on terms used in medicine, zoology, botany, etc., but also music, architecture, warfare, gastronomy, dress, weights and measures and the book world.  In early modern Europe, two main types of onomasiological dictionaries can be distinguished. The first type primarily has practical and didactic objectives. In spite of Junius  didactic claims presented in his preface, the Nomenclator belongs to a second group of topical dictionaries, which are less practical and more scholarly orientated. In comparison to the first type, these dictionaries, which often included old Greek, tend to be more comprehensive in volume and more methodical in classification and systematisation. Many dictionaries of the second type are called Nomenclator, and Junius  Dictionary probably ranks as it s best known exponent. .. In addition to the Latin headwords, Greek, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, and English translations are offered.   Of course, Junius made use of several sources (which are listed in the preface), but his dictionary is by no means derived from an existing one. As in many other early modern topical dictionaries, the overwhelming majority of concepts included as lemmas are concrete objects (resulting in a considerable number of substantive nouns). It is interesting to note that the number of technical concepts (especially in connection with diseases and illnesses) is considerably larger than the amount of  normal  vocabulary that is included. As Gabriele Stein suggested, this is most likely the result of Junius  training as a physician. ..In only a small number of lemmas do the eight languages occur together. English is included in no more than about 250 entries. As knowledge of English on the European continent was very limited in the sixteenth century, this is perhaps not surprising. .. Apart from the headworks and the translations, Junius enriched many lemmas with supplementary information, moving in the direction of encyclopaedic dictionary. In addition .. some entries feature an etymological explanation  Dirk van Miert  The Kaleidoscopic Scholarship of Hadrianus Junius (1511-1575).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JUNIUS, Hadrianus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139432271,"sku":"L2690","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5676-e1507732858845.jpg?v=1781795186"},{"product_id":"stephanus-of-byzantium-with-pollux-iulius","title":"STEPHANUS OF BYZANTIUM [with] POLLUX, Iulius","description":"\u003cp\u003eFine, handsome, and uncommon editions of two most important ancient works of Greek lexicography. Sixteenth-century editions of Stephanus of Byzantium s  Peri pole n  offered an abridged version of the original sixty-book text entitled  Ethnika  (      ) fragments of which could be found in the works of other ancient authors like Eustathius, as often highlighted by the anonymous and learned annotator of this copy. The  Ethnika  was a compendium of ethnic names of gentile peoples from places spanning Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Ireland, enriched with material on topography, local history, and mythology drawn from ancient authors. The  Onomastikon , composed by the Greek grammarian Ioulios Polydeukes in the second century AD, is a lexicon of phrases and synonyms in Attic dialect. It is divided by subject, and includes invaluable information on ancient customs, mythology, and everyday life, touching on themes as varied as oracles, poetry, horses, trees, and navigation. The  Onomastikon  is prefaced by a dedication from the Humanist Antonio Francini to Henry VIII s doctor Thomas Linacre, one of the first scholars of Greek in England and a member of Aldus Manutius s Venetian Academy.    Printed by the Giunti of Florence, both editions reprise, with a few layout variations and the addition of fine typographical ornaments, the first impressions published in 1502 by Aldus, who intended  Peri pole n  and  Onomastikon  to be bound together. The beautiful typeface, usually found in Giunti Greek texts and based on Francesco Griffo s work, sought to compete with Manutius s distinctive font, for which he had been granted a papal privilege contested by the Giunti. These rare editions testify to the way in which Pope Leo X resolved this long-standing dispute between the two printers, by conceding a similar privilege to the Giunti as long as they printed in a slightly different style to Aldus s.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"STEPHANUS OF BYZANTIUM [with] POLLUX, Iulius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139694415,"sku":"L2347","price":5250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_3858.jpg?v=1781795186"},{"product_id":"clement-of-alexandria","title":"CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good, crisp copy on thick paper of the editio princeps of Clement of Alexandria’s complete extant works, edited by the humanist Pietro Vettori. A Church Father and saint, Clement (c.150-215) converted to Christianity in his youth and studied at the Catechetical School of Alexandria, where he became professor. His thought was imbued with Greek philosophy and he had an excellent knowledge of pre-Christian cults. The ‘Protrepticus’ (‘ ’) is an exhortation to the Greeks to convert to Christianity in which Clement displays his mastery of their theology and mythology. The ‘Pedagogus’ (‘ ’) illustrates how to live according to a Christian ethics and in imitation of Christ. The ‘Stromata’ (‘ ’) is an eclectic work in three books, concerned with Greek philosophy, faith, asceticism, martyrdom, Greek poetry and prophetic biblical books.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLorenzo Torrentino (1499-1563) was appointed printer to Cosimo de’ Medici in 1547. Thanks to the handsome rounded types from his Brabant press, he overcame competitors like the Giunti, and produced for the Medici Press over 250 editions in two decades. Among those who convinced Cosimo to hire an official printer was Pietro Vettori (1499-1585), who planned to publish editiones principes of Greek texts to ‘rescue them from the ruins of time’. In his dedication to Cardinal Marcello Cervino, Vettori calls this edition a ‘monument to a saint and a very learned mind’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe remarkable provenance is traced to Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), Flemish cartographer and the father of the modern atlas. Published in over 25 editions before 1600, his ‘Theatrum orbis terrarum’ (1570) introduced maps into the everyday life of the early modern middle classes and changed the way European civilisation understood world geography. As stated in the 1606 English edition, Ortelius’s library was ‘well-stocked with all kinds of books, so that his house might truly be called a shop of all manners of learning’. This copy sheds light on Ortelius’s interest in Greek texts; until now only one—Suidas’s ‘Lexicon’ (Basle, 1544)—has been assigned to his library, which bears a similar casemark (G\/ckb\/) to this copy (F\/ck\/). Ortelius discussed Greek editions with the humanist Isaac Casaubon and Bonaventura Vulcanius, professor of Greek and Latin at Cologne and Leiden.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe C14 mss in the pastedown are taken from ‘Sermones dominicales Parisienses’ and ‘Summae virtutum ac vitiorum’ by Guillaume Perault (1190-1271), a Dominican preacher and writer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139923791,"sku":"K113","price":20000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K113.jpg?v=1781795185"},{"product_id":"justinian-1","title":"JUSTINIAN","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good, well-margined  editio princeps  of Emperor Justinian s  Constitutiones Novellae , one of the milestones in the history of Western European legal systems. Justinian I (482-565) ruled for forty years over the Byzantine empire and succeeded in temporarily rekindling the former splendour of Rome by reclaiming Italy, Dalmatia and Spain from the Ostrogoths and Visigoths. He is best known for the  Corpus iuris civilis  including the  Codex Justinianum , the  Digesta  or  Pandectae , the  Institutiones  and the  Novellae Constitutiones  a compendium of all the decrees passed by Roman emperors, which became the official reference work on civil law after the year 529. The editio princeps contains the 168  Novellae Constitutiones , a collection of edicts passed by Justinian after the compilation of the  Corpus  and later incorporated into it. Whilst the Latin text appeared in print in 1476, the Greek drawn from the C14 Codex Laurentianus preserved at the Medici Library was not published (with its Latin counterpart) until 1531. Its editor, Gregorius Haloander (1501-31), was professor at Nuremberg and had also edited the  Codex iuris civilis  (Nuremberg, 1529). The  Novellae  cover a wide array of subjects in great depth, from laws of inheritance to mortgaging ecclesiastical property, incest and the oaths of public officials. They also show how Roman laws were applied in colonial territories, for instance, in matters relating to the Church and the inheritance of family estates in Africa. The edition concludes with the 85  Canones Apostolorum , mentioned by Justinian in the sixth  novella  as part of ecclesiastical law. Mistakenly attributed to Pope Clement, the  Canones  were a collection of regulations and decrees of the early Christian Church, first printed in their entirety in this edition and later incorporated into the  Corpus iuris canonici .  This copy belonged to Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655-1716),  the most learned man of his day , and the owner of the largest private library in Scotland. Among his possessions was also a ms. summary of the  Corpus iuris civilis .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JUSTINIAN","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816141857103,"sku":"L2738","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2738-Justinian.jpg?v=1781795173"},{"product_id":"catullus-gaius-valerius-tibullus-albius-propertius-sextus","title":"CATULLUS, Gaius Valerius, TIBULLUS, Albius, PROPERTIUS, Sextus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe attractive, gilt armorial binding was produced c. 1700 for Nicolas Lambert, seigneur of Thorigny and Vermont. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very good, crisp copy of this Aldine first edition, edited by Hieronymo Avantio, of the immortal poems of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius the three most important elegiac authors of the late Roman republic and early imperial era. Catullus, Propertius and Tibullus s poems revealed a new poetic feeling rejecting the heroic character of the epic tradition in favour of a more familiar tone and intimate subjects like love, erotic desire, rejection and mourning. Gaius Valerius Catullus (84-54BC) spent most of his life in Rome where he was acquainted with important authors and politicians. His most famous  carmina , 116 of which are extant, include verse on his love and desire for  Lesbia , and lampoons against public figures like Julius Caesar. Albius Tibullus (55-19BC) was part of the circle of the Roman orator and politician Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus. His verse survives in four books, only the first two of which are of safe attribution, and is mostly devoted to his intense and star-crossed love for the married  Delia . Sextus Propertius (c.50-15BC) enjoyed the protection of Maecenas and Augustus and is most famous for his four books of poems, many written for his beloved  Cynthia . This  elegiac collection  format was successfully republished in Europe throughout the century; in the 1590s, several editions appeared in which the texts were  castigati  and  expurgati  of their most obvious sexual references. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy was once part of the Bibliotheca Lamoniana. First acquired by Guillaume de Lamoignon in 1650, the library was augmented from 2500 to over 6000 volumes in the following century, especially by Chr étien François II de Lamoignon. Upon his death in 1789, it was sold to the English bookseller Thomas Payne. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Nicolas Lambert (1659-1729) de Thorigny and Vermont was a French politician and bibliophile. Like several members of the Lamoignon family, he held office as a Parliamentary councillor and then president of one of the chambers. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Robert Dalrymple (also Hamilton) (b. 1716) was probably the third son of Sir Robert of Castleton (d. 1734) and grandson of Sir Hew Dalrymple, 1st Baronet of North Berwick. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Fredrik Wulff (1845-1930) was professor of philology at Lund.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CATULLUS, Gaius Valerius, TIBULLUS, Albius, PROPERTIUS, Sextus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816141889871,"sku":"L2711","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2711.jpg?v=1781795173"},{"product_id":"dionysius-halicarnassensis","title":"DIONYSIUS, Halicarnassensis","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine copy of this beautifully printed edition, in a beautiful contemporary Scottish armorial binding, with the arms of John Stewart, 5th Earl of Atholl, and remarkable Scottish provenance. The M M monogram above the arms could have been added later, possibly the initials of one of John s descendants from the Murray family. Early Scottish armorial bindings are particularly rare. Of particular interest is the autograph Robertus Lindesius on the title which could very well be that of the Scottish chronicler Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie (c. 1530 c. 1590).  Scottish historian, of the family of the Lindsays of the Byres, was born at Pitscottie, in the parish of Ceres, Fifeshire, which he held in lease at a later period. His Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, the only work by which he is remembered, is described as a continuation of that of Hector Boece, translated by John Bellenden. It covers the period from 1437 to 1565, and, though it sometimes degenerates into a mere chronicle of short entries, is not without passages of great picturesqueness. Sir Walter Scott made use of it in Marmion; and, in spite of its inaccuracy in details, it is useful for the social history of the period. Lindsay s share in the Cronicles was generally supposed to end with 1565; but Dr Aeneas Mackay considers that the frank account of the events connected with Mary Stuart between 1565 and 1575 contained in one of the MSS. is by his hand and was only suppressed because it was too faithful in its record of contemporary affairs. The Historie and Cronicles was first published in 1728. A complete edition of the text (2 vols.), based on the Laing MS. No. 218 in the university of Edinburgh, was published by the Scottish Text Society in 1809 under the editorship of Aeneas J. G. Mackay. The MS., formerly in the possession of John Scott of Halkshill, is fuller, and, though in a later hand, is, on the whole, a better representative of Lindsay s text.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This beautifully printed edition of Dionysius  most important work is edited by by Sigmund Gelenius, with an additional chronology supplied by Henri Glareanus.  Gelenius at one time studied Greek under Marcus Musurus and visited Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and France before returning to Prague, where he lectured privately on Greek authors and entered into correspondence with Melanchthon.   Probably in 1524 he moved to Basel, where he lived in Erasmus  household. He spent the remainder of his life working for the Froben press as a scholar, editor, corrector, and translator from the Greek, even declining a position as professor of Greek at Nuremberg for which he was recommended by Melanchthon in 1525 and 1526.   in his day there cannot have been many major productions of the Froben press which did not benefit from his selfless scholarly devotion.   There is also evidence that he collaborated on a number of editions by Erasmus   Erasmus held Gelenius in high regard as is attested to by himself and others  Contemporaries of Erasmus, II, pp. 84-85.  Glareanus  annotations arose from a cultural, intellectual and even religious background that was very different from that of his predecessors. In sixteenth-century Basel, Henricus Glareanus was part of a flourishing community of scholars and printers engaged in the business of bookselling and publishing. Both emulating the Aldine model and pursuing the footsteps of Erasmus of Rotterdam, they collaborated to produce new editions of classical and patristic texts, which were based on a critical study of the manuscripts. This marked in the words of Hans-Hubertus Mack, the origins of classical philology as a scholarly discipline.  Marijke Crab.  Exemplary Reading . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Historian and rhetorician of the first century BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus left Greece for Rome where he researched and composed a history of the city in twenty books. This tenth book is nearly complete while later ones are fragmentary. Informed by the classical concept of history as a source of exemplary and instructive ethical models, the text aimed to justify Roman rule over Greece and argued for a Greek origin of Roman ancestry. It is followed by De compositione, seu orationis partium apta inter se collocatione, a work on different styles of rhetoric. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A remarkable copy; beautifully bound with extraordinary provenance.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DIONYSIUS, Halicarnassensis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816143921487,"sku":"K69","price":10000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_1112.jpg?v=1781794952"},{"product_id":"terentius-afer-publius","title":"TERENTIUS AFER, Publius.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAccurate Estienne edition of one of the masters of Latin comedy. A liberated slave of North African origins, Terence (c. 195\/185-159 BC ) is the most prominent comic playwright of ancient Rome along with Plautus. Relying extensively on the plays of the New Greek Comedy and especially those of Menander, the six comedies written by Terence enjoyed long-lasting success, were copied in several manuscripts and thus exceptionally survived all together. For almost two millenniums throughout the Middle Ages and early modern times, they were employed as model of polished Latin in schools. This is regarded as the best edition published by the humanist printer Robert Estienne, including three fundamental commentaries: the first, featuring the earliest biography of the author, by the famous grammarian Aelius Donatus (fl. mid-4th century AD); the second, complementing Donatus with an insight into the third comedy (The Self-Tormentor), by the scholar Giovanni Calfurnio (1443-1503), one of Aldus s editors; and the third, briefly illustrating Terence s metric system and vocabulary, written by Erasmus, whose emendations of the textual faults in a previous edition by Estienne himself (1529) are gladly accepted here. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy belonged to Ren é-Alexandre Aubry, lord of Barneville and counsellor of the Parisian Parliament, died 1740. There is no record about his library, though two other books with his distinctive supralibros (Guigard, II, p. 23) have appeared on the French market in recent years. At the beginning of 1921, the book was presented to a promising young Latinist, Jean Bunard, by the French novelist and poet Anatole France (1844-1924), who appears to have acquired it in 1873. Son of a Paris book dealer, France, born François-Anatole Thibault, was a well-known bibliophile. A few months after this gift, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TERENTIUS AFER, Publius.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816144347471,"sku":"L2210","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2210-Terence-1-e1520515161433.jpg?v=1781794953"},{"product_id":"petrarca-francesco","title":"PETRARCA, Francesco.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe strawberry leaf coronet over the monogrammed  P  demonstrates a Ducal provenance. During the period in which this binding could have been made, there were only two British Dukedoms, the Cavendish -Bentincks of Welbeck Abbey, supporters and favourites of William of Orange, created 1716 and Louise de K érouaille, beloved mistress of Charles II, created Duchess in her own right in 1673 (age 24) and who lived another 60 years. Remarkably, she is an ancestress of Princess Diana, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Sarah, Duchess of York. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A good copy of the first of two Lyon counterfeit editions of 1501 Aldine Petrarch, and one of the earliest piracies of the Aldine octavo series. The Aldine edition of the  Canzoniere  and  Trionfi  was edited by the humanist scholar Pietro Bembo using Petrarch s autograph (Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3197). It was one of the first vernacular text to be printed in Griffo s Italic type and had an immediate success, attracting the attention of competitors and counterfeiters. The  Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta , as Petrarch had called them, became during the 16 th century a European bestseller which influenced Italian, French and English literary cultures. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Lyonese counterfeit contains the index of the poems at end but omits the colophon and the four leaves with Aldo s address to the reader and errata. The book consists of two sections: 1)  Canzoniere  including chants, madrigals, sestinas and sonnets, inspired by Petrarch s love for Laura, and divided into two parts, part 1 consisting of 227 poems focused on Laura during her lifetime, and part 2 of 108 sonnets about Laura after her death, with a final plea to the Virgin to end the author s suffering; 2)  Trionfi , a long allegorical poem in six parts (Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time and Eternity) that portrays the spiritual journey of the soul from the temporal world to eternity. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The book collector William O Brien was an Irish judge and nationalist. His collection, which was housed within Milton Park Library since 1899, included, among many others, a number of Aldine imprints, along with some counterfeits produced in Lyon and Florence.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PETRARCA, Francesco.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816145559887,"sku":"L2704","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8433.jpg?v=1781794944"},{"product_id":"lucian-of-samosata","title":"LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe handsome printed armorial ex-libris belongs to the bibliophile Hans (J√°nos) Teilnkes, citizen of Breslavia (or Presburg), then in Hungary and now in Slovakia. It was probably printed in Nuremberg, hence the Germanisation of his name into Hans, and is reputed to be the first ex-libris ever to be used in Hungary. This copy probably never travelled far from Breslavia. It was originally a prize book given to the student Joannis (J√°nos?) Talirasy by a teacher probably named Christophorus Borbonius. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good copy of fascinating provenance of Lucian of Samosata s satirical masterpiece against the traditional representation of Greek deities, translated into Latin and edited by the humanist Ottmar Luscinus. Originally from Syria, Lucian (c.125-180AD) was a Hellenistic author renowned for his very successful, mordant works in prose, poetry and dialogue form, inspired by the philosophical current of the Cynics and their indifference towards received conventions.  Dialogues of the Gods  teased the portrayal of Greek gods and goddesses immortalized in Homeric poems, with both a complicit yet disenchanted eye. It features 75 dialogues between deities and heroes of the heavens, sea and underground, including Jove, Prometheus, Neptune, Hermes, Apollo, Bacchus as well as nymphs. For instance, the Cyclops Polyphemus complains with his father Neptune about how Ulysses blinded him in his sleep in Homer s  Odyssey ; after mocking his son s incompetence, Neptune concludes ominously that, although he may not be able to cure blindness, he has full power over mariners; and Ulysses  is still navigating . As proved by the provenance of this copy, in the Renaissance Lucian s works were deemed useful for the education of youth for their engaging content and brilliant style. A great promoter of the teaching of Greek in Strasbourg, Luscinus explained in the preface how he had been taught Greek on Lucian s  Dialogues . Widely translated, Lucian s writings influenced European authors including Shakespeare and Marlowe, and inspired fundamental works of Western thought like Thomas More s  Utopia .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LUCIAN OF SAMOSATA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816153260367,"sku":"L2592","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4205.png?v=1781794930"},{"product_id":"maggi-giovanni-rossi-bartolomeo-with-cavalieri-giovanni-battista","title":"MAGGI, Giovanni, ROSSI, Bartolomeo. [with] CAVALIERI, Giovanni Battista","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery good copies of these superb illustrated works, in fine impression on high-quality paper, celebrating the antiquities of Rome. Commissioned by the printer Andrea della Vaccaria, this first edition of  Ornamenti di fabriche  is a collection of 24 plates some hand-coloured in this copy engraved by the artist Giovanni Maggi (1566-1618), with narrative captions composed by the scholar Bartolomeo Rossi. The illustrations guide the readers through the meanders of Rome towards the discovery of ancient and modern monuments including obelisks with hieroglyphs, the sculpted horses on the Quirinal, Trajan s column, and the more recent catafalques for the funerals of Sixtus V and Alessandro Farnese. Each monument provides the occasion for a snapshot of brief and juicy antiquarian narratives, basking in epigraphic material,  vedute , classicism and the charm of ruins. Despite its title,  Antiquarum statuarum urbis Romae  is not strictly a third edition of its namesake original, but a collection of plates from the previous ones (1561, 1562) commissioned by the publisher Lorenzo della Vaccheria, Andrea s father. Produced by Cherubino Alberti and Orazio Santis under the supervision of the engraver Giovanni Battista Cavalieri (c.1525-1601), it provides a magnificent gallery of the most renowned Roman statues such as the Laocoon and Marcus Aurelius on horseback as well as more general sculptures like satyrs, deities, river gods, shepherds, emperors and heroes. Both works are outstanding examples of the genre of Roman print collections so dear to Renaissance humanists and artists. They epitomize the art of  vedutismo  and perspective, the new science of epigraphy (including hieroglyphs), the achievements of Renaissance classicism, historiography and antiquarianism, and the seed of the  picturesque  movement of the C18. Whilst they gave the opportunity for  arm-chair travelling  to learned readers who did not wish to leave their homes, these collections also inspired the sketches and works of painters, engravers and architects and the study of humanists, who had visited seen them in Rome and purchased a memento for reference. A couple of copies are recorded in which I and II are bound together; they may have been sold in that fashion by Andrea della Vaccheria who probably had plates from Cavalieri s work left over from his father s time hence the inconsistent composition of recorded copies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MAGGI, Giovanni, ROSSI, Bartolomeo. [with] CAVALIERI, Giovanni Battista","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816154505551,"sku":"L1986","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8537.jpg?v=1781794922"},{"product_id":"dioscorides","title":"DIOSCORIDES","description":"\u003cp\u003eA handsome copy of this fundamental ancient Greek work on herbal medicine the first pharmacopoeia which influenced Western medical practice until the C19. The work had been circulating in Latin (as well as Greek and Arabic) throughout the medieval period, never falling into oblivion. It was first printed by Filippo Giunta in 1518, in a Latin translation and commentary by the Florentine humanist and Medici chancellor Marcello Virgilio Adriani (1464-1521), of which this is the second edition. Born in Cilicia, Discorides (40-90AD) was a Greek physician at the service of the Roman army and an expert botanist. A compendium of medical knowledge which rivalled Hippocrates s and Oribasius s works,  De Materia medica  discusses the properties and medical uses of hundreds of herbs all typical of the eastern Mediterranean region, often providing their names in other languages like Thracian, ancient Egyptian or Carthaginian. Its five parts cover a variety of topics including not only aromatic or culinary herbs and plants (e.g., cardamom, cinnamon, liquorice and valerian) but also cereals, fruit, roots, seeds and even minerals from which ointments, drinks or balms can be made. The short sections discuss the name, origins, physical characteristics and medical uses of each; room is also devoted to specific conditions, their symptoms and the best practice and medicaments to treat them. To the bite of adders, vipers and basilisks, for instance, is devoted a long section which explains how to intervene in case of emergency and how to prepare and use life-saving pharmacopoeia including cedar juice, bitumen and green  pilulae  made from plane trees cooked in diluted wine.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DIOSCORIDES","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816154865999,"sku":"L2872","price":12500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190713_154501.jpg?v=1781794920"},{"product_id":"carmina-with-pindar","title":"[CARMINA] [with] PINDAR","description":"\u003cp\u003eBeautifully printed and rare edition of this collection of Greek poetry including the works of Pindar, edited by Henri Estienne, in a stunning contemporary French fanfare binding, very much in the style of those executed for Jaques August de Thou at the same period. They contain selected works by the Greek poets Alcaeus, Sappho, Stesichorus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Bacchylides, Simonides and Alcman and includes also many other short poems concerning these poets by contemporary and later authors, both Greek and Latin. Edition in two volumes, but each presented as a separate publication, of some Greek poets, in Greek with Latin translation. Edited and translated by Henricus Stephanus.  Voet. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The binding is very similar a fanfare binding made for Jaques August de Thou in the British library, shelf-mark c19b12, using the same, or a near identical, winged cherub tool, and is very similar in overall design. This binding is in De Thous arms as a bachelor so cannot have been made before 1587. See also two other bindings in the BL, both for De Thou, shelf-marks c19b11, c19b16 also with very similar bindings. The fanfare style had its beginnings in around 1560, gradually becoming more complex and intricate, covering the entire binding with small compartments with torsades, spirals of leafy stems, and branches, the whole worked with a multitude of small tools. The style reached its peak towards the end of the C16th. Needham points out  It was much more common for fanfare bindings to be found on special presentation copies and gifts  as they were so time consuming and expensive to make  A finite library of good books could be bound luxuriously as a cabinet of treasures  We have been unable to identify the first owner whose monogram is stamped at the centres. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The work has prestigious later provenance belonging to Chr étien-François de Lamoignon (Paris, 1735   1789) a French statesman and magistrate. Lamoignon was the Keeper of the Seals of France from 8 April 1787 to 14 September 1788. In this position, he was responsible for issuing the Edict of Versailles in 1787, which granted civil status and freedom of worship to France s Protestants, and for the abolition of judicial torture. On his death his magnificent library was bought in its entirety by Jean Gabriel M érigot who made a catalogue for its sale in 1791.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[CARMINA] [with] PINDAR","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816155324751,"sku":"L2682","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2682-1.jpg?v=1781794916"},{"product_id":"oxford-university","title":"OXFORD UNIVERSITY","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first and only edition of this collection of poetry comprising more than 470 Latin poems, with a few in Greek, Italian and French, from members of Oxford colleges on the death of Elizabeth I and the accession of James I. On page 17, there is a complaint about the lack of Hebrew type. The King s pedigree from Edward the Third, is prefixed to the volume with some verses by the Vice Chancellor Dr. Howson. This work was preceded by another from the same press  Oxoniensis Academiae Funebre Officium in Memoriam Elizabethae,  of collected poems on the funeral of Queen Elizabeth. Almost all such university poems are considered as academic exercises, however they offer great insight into the politics and culture of the Elizabethan period, and at a particularly crucial time in the History of the Monarchy. Many of the poets in this volume rarely published their work, which often circulated in manuscript, so such miscellanies offer tremendous insight into contemporary poetry. Hazlitt states that Sir Walter Raleigh contributed to the collection however the poem he is referring to is signed  Guil. Raleghe  and seems unlikely to be by Sir Walter who was imprisoned that year by James.   The practise at English universities of printing collections of verses in the learned languages to celebrate public events seems to have started in 1587 with the death of Sir Philip Sidney. But whereas the exequies of the Oxford muses on that occasion were printed at Oxford itself by the university printer Joseph Barnes, the tears of Cambridge were published in London and it was not till 1603 that the first Cambridge-printed volume appeared.  ..Oxford meanwhile poured out no less than eleven volumes of verses adding the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Platine in 1613 and the Kings safe return from Scotland in 1617 as well as domestic tributes to the memory of the Universities benefactors, Sir Thomas Bodley (1613), Sir Henry Savile (1622) and Willaim Camden (1624). And individual Oxford colleges also produced their own memorial collections for distinguished alumni or special benefactors.  Harold Forster.  The rise and fall of the Cambridge Muses (1603-1763).  There is a lengthy note on the fly stating that the work belonged to Sir Philip Oldfeld commoner of the Brasenose College, who wrote the verses on page 178\/179. The quality of the copy, in s very high quality contemporary binding certainly suggest that it was bound, either for presentation or for a contributor.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"OXFORD UNIVERSITY","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816156995919,"sku":"L2233","price":4250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190404_142253.jpg?v=1781794905"},{"product_id":"euclid-2","title":"EUCLID","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis outstanding copy was printed on blue paper for presentation. No copies on blue paper of this edition are recorded in major bibliographies or at US libraries. Intended as a substitute for parchment, blue paper was first employed by Aldus, and perfected by Giolito, for  deluxe  copies prepared for important personalities. It became an increasingly widespread practice with selected copies of particularly scientific and architectural works in the course of the C16. The translator and commentator of this edition, Federico Commandino, had also overseen the printing on blue paper of a limited Latin edition of Euclid s  Elements  in 1572. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Very rare copy, on blue paper, of the first Italian translation of Euclid s  Elements  edited by Federico Commandino. Commandino (1509-75) was a humanist from Urbino renowned for his translations of the works of ancient Greek mathematicians including Aristarchus of Samos and Pappus of Alexandria. Several of his Latin (and later vernacular) renditions of Greek mathematical terms, for which he relied on previous adaptations by Roman authors like Cicero and Vitruvius, became the standard. Euclid (4th century BC) was the first to reunite mathematical theories from the ancient world into a coherent, bi-dimensional system centred on simple axioms of plane geometry, based on angles and distance, from which further propositions (or theorems) could be deduced. His  Elements  began with the crucial definition of  point ,  that which has no part nor size  and which is only determined by two numbers defining its position in space the fundamental notion on which the Euclidean geometrical system is based. The fifteen books of the work, the last two of which are now considered spurious, discuss plane and solid geometry, the theory of proportion and the properties of rational and irrational numbers. Euclid s  Elements  was commonly used in schools for centuries and is  the oldest mathematical textbook in the world  (PMM 25). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy belonged to an early mathematician who wrote a long marginal re-phrasing of a corollary. Between the late C18 and early C19, it was in the collection of the bibliophile Count Remigio Filiberto Costa della Trinit√†.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EUCLID","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816160862543,"sku":"K135","price":39500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K135-5.jpg?v=1781794897"},{"product_id":"cicero-marcus-tullius-lambin-denis","title":"CICERO, Marcus Tullius, [LAMBIN, Denis.]","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery good copy of two Aldine editions, intended as companion volumes, of Cicero s rhetorical works, here issued for the first time with a commentary by the humanist Denis Lambin. Despite the imprimatur  Ex Bibliotheca Aldina , these works were printed by the Torresani, heirs to Andrea, Aldus s  socerus  and associate; these were also their first Ciceronian editions. The Torresani editions have been praised as  handsome, almost all rare, and kept in much esteem  (Renouard,  Notice , 72). Due to their excellence, they were either attributed to Aldus and his heirs or mistaken for counterfeits even by notable bibliographers until the mid-C19 (Bernoni,  Dei Torresani , 128). One of the most influential figures of classical antiquity, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) put his legal skills to the service of politics with speeches which became landmarks of forensic oratory. Defined by Quintilian as  eloquence itself , his copious prose production occupied a fundamental place in medieval syllabi. Subsequent to the rediscovery of further texts, including the letters, by scholars like Petrarch, Cicero contributed to forging the Latin style of the Renaissance and its ideas on political theory (e.g., Republicanism), rhetoric (e.g., the principles of argument, eloquence and invention) and philosophy (e.g., Stoicism). The first work in this sammelband includes his greatly influential  ad Herennium , by then presented as probably spurious ( incerto auctore ), as well as  De inventione  and  Topica  (how to construct arguments in structure and content), and  De partitione oratoria  on oratory techniques. The second work begins with  De oratore , an immensely influential analysis of how a good orator should construct persuasive arguments which should however be driven by sound ethical principles. There follow  Orator , a description of the perfect orator integrating observations in previous works, and  De claris oratoribus , a history of eloquence through individual figures including Pericles and Solon. Denis Lambin s commentaries to  Rhetorica  and to the first book of  De oratore  appended to each part bear a separate t-p, pagination and collation, but were not intended for separate publication. Lambin (1520-72) was a French humanist who taught Latin and Greek at the Collège de France. He was praised for his philological precision but also criticised for being  too concerned with trivialities of language at the expense not only of philosophical issues but also of practical matters of politics and individual conduct  (Salmon,  Renaissance and Revolt , 50).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CICERO, Marcus Tullius, [LAMBIN, Denis.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816162533711,"sku":"L3159","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190525_122819.jpg?v=1781794891"},{"product_id":"tasso-torquato","title":"TASSO, Torquato","description":"\u003cp\u003eA remarkable copy, on large paper, of the first edition, first issue, of the hugely popular and influential translation into English by the English poet Fairfax of Tasso s Jerusalem Delivered. Fairfax s was the first complete translation, though Richard Carew had produced a translation of the first five books  Torquato Tasso s Jerusalem Delivered is one of the great Italian epics, an influential and immensely popular piece. .. There have been many translations of Tasso s work, new ones continuing to appear at a steady rate , but to speak of Tasso in English has, for four hundred years, been to speak of Edward Fairfax s translation. .. The Elizabethan poet Fairfax did not make a great mark with his own verse (little of which survives), but his translation is an acknowledged masterpiece   of sorts. Fairfax s  translation  is a fairly free one, taking more liberties than most translators care or dare to. There is considerable embellishment of the text, specifically with the addition of nouns and adjectives as Fairfax uses two   or three   words to repeat what Tasso expressed in one. Fairfax remains true to the story, but his language is much more sprightly (and the effect more dramatic   or at least melodramatic) than in Tasso s original. Usually such translatorial interference does little to enhance a text, but Fairfax was a real poet and his English version, though a stretch as a translation, is an impressive English epic. Fairfax s imprint was a strong and enduring one, and the reception of Tasso in the English-speaking world has been almost entirely through this rose-coloured version. There are few instances in English in which a single translation has taken so many liberties and yet been so influential. Fairfax follows Tasso s ottava rima, faithfully preserving the rhyme scheme of the original .. for each stanza. Occasionally it is forced, with some creative word-twisting and occasional coining, but Fairfax proceeds vigorously and often lyrically. He has a poet s ear for language, and even when he can not comfortably twist the Italian into English the verses are often powerful.  Literary Saloon.    Fairfax s relationship with Tasso s Liberata is dynamic from the very beginning. Far from trying to mirror Tasso s words and rhythm, Fairfax simplifies not only syntax and prosody, but also the whole rhetorical texture of Tasso s epic. David Hume wrote of Fairfax s achievement that it possessed  an elegance and ease, and at the same time [..] an exactness, which for that age are surprising. Each line in the original is faithfully rendered by a correspondent line in the translation.    but this judgment does not pass the test of a careful critical examination.  Massimiliano Morini  Tudor Translation in Theory and Practice.   Torquato Tasso (1544 1595) was one of the greatest Italian poets of the late Renaissance, the son of Bernardo Tasso, a poet and courtier. In 1560 he read law in Padua where he met the humanist Sperone Speroni, under whose guidance he studied Aristotle s  Poetics . In 1565 Tasso entered the service of the House of Este. While revising his poem  Gerusalemme Liberata , he developed a persecution mania which caused his incarceration in the hospital of Santa Anna (1579 86).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TASSO, Torquato","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816162697551,"sku":"L3003","price":11000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190522_163605.jpg?v=1781794890"},{"product_id":"streinnius-richardus","title":"STREINNIUS, Richardus","description":"\u003cp\u003eBeautifully printed first edition of this work on Roman genealogy by Reichard Streun von Schwarzenau, Austrian nobleman, politician and historian, composed by the author when he was 21 years old. He was later a close associate of Maximilian II, and became renowned as the owner of a substantial private library, A copy of this work, in contemporary limp vellum, is preserved from Michel de Montaigne s library.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"STREINNIUS, Richardus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820137292111,"sku":"L2082","price":2500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Screenshot-2024-08-06-at-14.22.12.webp?v=1781794853"},{"product_id":"manuzio-paolo-1","title":"MANUZIO, Paolo","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of one of the most influential Neo-Latin collections in early modern Europe. Paolo Manuzio (1512-1574) was a prominent humanist of the late Italian Renaissance. The youngest son of Aldus, he was a very influential scholar and publisher in his own right, living up to the family tradition. A master of the epistolary genre with very successful collections both in Latin and vernacular, he was especially engaged, as a scholar, in Latin literature. His commentaries on the works of Cicero and his polished Latin prose won him long-lasting fame throughout Europe. Under his management, the Aldine press flourished once again, after the dark times of the early 1530s. He also acted as the official printer to the Academia Venetiana between 1558 and 1561, while in the following nine years he ran the first papal press in Rome. This collection comprises several letters and prefaces written by Paolo to the Gotha of the political, religious and academic establishment of mid-sixteenth-century Italy. The work kept growing over the following 15 years until it included 12 books. However, some self-censorship took place in order to cope with the Indexes of forbidden books issued by Paul IV in 1559 and the Tridentine Council in 1564, so that a few letters appear here for the first, and only, time in their original form. As Renouard sarcastically glossed, Paolo claimed in the initial dedicatory letter that he decided to publish the present collection because of pressure from his fellow members of the Venetian Academy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANUZIO, Paolo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820300640591,"sku":"L2279","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190313_173722.jpg?v=1781794848"},{"product_id":"manuzio-paolo-2","title":"MANUZIO, Paolo","description":"\u003cp\u003eAldine edition of an important Renaissance commentary on Cicero s most famous epistolary collection, first published in 1547. Paolo Manuzio (1512-1574) was one of the most prominent humanists of the late Italian Renaissance. The youngest son of Aldus, he was a very influential scholar and publisher in his own right, living up to the family tradition. A master of the epistolary genre with very successful collections both in Latin and vernacular, he was especially engaged as a scholar in Latin literature. His commentaries on the works of Cicero and his polished Latin prose won him long-lasting fame throughout Europe. Under his management, the Aldine press flourished once again, after the dark times of the early 1530s. He also acted as the official printer to the Academia Venetiana between 1558 and 1561, while in the following nine years he ran the first papal press in Rome. Cicero s letters to his friend Atticus, written from 68 to 44 BC and traditionally arranged in 16 books, provide an unparalleled insight not only into the author s daily life and always provoking thoughts, but also into the decades preceding the fall of the Roman Republic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANUZIO, Paolo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820305621327,"sku":"L2293b","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/frontcover_6593e793-ca55-4c2b-abac-df61f8f48016.png?v=1781794849"},{"product_id":"vettori-piero","title":"VETTORI, Piero.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFine copy of Piero Vettori s classic commentary on Cato, Varro and Columella. Vettori (1499-1585) was among the most influential Italian humanists and Greek philologists, and editor of works some of them appearing for the first time in print by Aeschylus, Cicero, Aristotle and Euripides, mostly published in Paris and Lyon.  Explicationes  was intended as an appended commentary with references to specific phrases and lines in Vettori s editions of Cato, Varro and Columella s works on husbandry, agriculture and farming, with which it was sometimes bound (see Renouard 55:2). These were known collectively as  De re rustica  a florilegium addressed to a C16 readership interested in the classical rustic virtues of landownership and practical aspects of country life, covering topics as varied as the best place to set up a beehive, horticulture, remedies for dogs with flees and sick horses, ways to scare snakes off stables and regulations for workers. Marcus Porcius Cato s (234-149 BC)  De Agri Cultura  (c.160 BC) was a manual on the management of a country estate reliant on slaves, with a special interest in the cultivation of vines. Marcus Terentius Varro s (116-107BC)  Rerum rusticarum libri tres  was based on his direct experience of farming. A soldier and farmer, Lucius Moderatus Columella (4-70AD) is best known for his  Res rustica , one the cultivation of vines and olives, farming and estate management, and the shorter  De arboribus , on horticulture. Vettori compares his edited text to a variety of sources. These included epigraphic inscriptions and ms. variants in Latin and Greek found, for instance, in the Bibliotheca Medicea, easy access to which he had enjoyed since 1538, when he was appointed professor of classics in Cosimo I de  Medici s Studio Fiorentino.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VETTORI, Piero.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820341469519,"sku":"L2966","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_6881-scaled.jpg?v=1781794842"},{"product_id":"cicogna-strozzi","title":"CICOGNA, Strozzi.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good copy, with edges fresh from the press, of the scarce second Latin edition of this occultum  a very curious and uncommon work  (Caillet I, 2373). Strozzi Cicogna (1568-1605) studied law at Padua; a late humanist, he devoted himself to poetry and philosophy, achieving lasting fame with  Il Palagio degl incanti , published in 1605. It was translated into Latin by Gaspare Ens in 1606; the 1607 Latin edition is an exact reprint of the first. It is a treatise on daemonology a winning combination of ancient and Scholastic theories on god, the nature and origin of the world, with a Renaissance interest towards pagan, Christian, Hermetic and Cabalistic ideas, and a wealth of learned and popular anecdotes. Some of these Cicogna had heard from the archpriest of Barbarano, near his hometown Vicenza, who recounted supernatural events which had happened to him ( Storia popolare d Italia , VII, 163). This  dense and almost unknown treatise  contains  the most systematic taxonomy of the demonic presences inhabiting the creation  and is  the most comprehensive and original treatise on angelic beings ever written in early modern Europe  (Maggi,  Company of Demons , 17). Book II is devoted to the nature of angels with comparative theories drawn from the classical and Hebrew tradition. Book III discusses the hierarchies and types of demons (aerial, earthly, aquatic, etc.), and Book IV studies the foundations of demonic magic and the demons  interactions with human beings. Although the work was approved by the Inquisition in 1605 as  delightful for the vague and varied narrative  and constantly  safe doctrine  it was included in the Index in 1623. Robert Burton drew heavily from Cicogna s work for his  Anatomy of Melancholy ; one of Cicogna s anecdotes inspired a poem by the English Gothic novelist Matthew Gregory Lewis.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CICOGNA, Strozzi.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820342452559,"sku":"L2602","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0994.jpg?v=1781794837"},{"product_id":"guillermus-parisiensis-with-agricola-daniel","title":"GUILLERMUS PARISIENSIS [with] AGRICOLA, Daniel","description":"\u003cp\u003eContemporary hand-coloured copies, in fine C16 Swiss binding, of these successful works addressed to priests, to improve their understanding of  lessons  from the Gospels, read at liturgy. These didactic manuals, intended to be bound together, are illustrated with superb full-page or smaller woodcuts by the Swiss artist Urs Graf, added to decorate and facilitate memorisation, even more striking, as here, in fresh period colouring. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The first work is William of Auvergne s (or Guillelmus Parisiensis, c.1180-1249) major commentary ( postilla ), first published in Lyon in 1471. Appointed bishop of Paris in 1228, he was a Scholastic theologian and the first medieval philosopher who sought to reconcile Christian doctrines with Aristotelianism. Addressed to  less experienced clerics and preachers in their early stages ,  Postille  presents on each page a small excerpt ( lesson ) from the Epistles or Gospels to be read on Sundays or weekdays of specific parts of the liturgical year, surrounded by a commentary based on authorities like Nicolaus de Lyra, Rabanus and the Glossa Ordinaria.  More than one hundred editions of the  Postilla    were printed during the C15. Surely this esteemed compilation must be regarded as one of the earliest  best sellers  [...]. This compilation of the  Postilla  was written down in 1437 expressly for members of the clergy and for those desirous of understanding the excerpts \u003cbr\u003e\n from the Epistles and the Evangelists, more commonly called lessons, which are read at appropriate services throughout the church year. It obviously filled a most pressing need  (Goff,  Postilla , 73). The  Passio  shares a similar structure and purpose. First published in 1511 by the Swiss Franciscan preacher Daniel Agricola (or Meyer, 1490-1540), it presents excerpts almost a concordance from the Gospels  narration of Christ s passion, surrounded by glosses, as an instrument to facilitate the composition of Lenten homilies. It is prefixed by an index entitled  Directorium in Dominice Passionis articulos  with the imprint 1513. The early annotator (and perhaps painter) of these copies, probably the Swiss Jacob Thursson, was a preacher. He was interested in the proper behaviour that becomes ministers of the church, who should pursue  what honours God and is helpful to people , keeping  a humble mind and a pure flesh . He also highlighted explanations of key issues such as that the proof of Christ s divinity came from  the union of the Word and the flesh in the Virgin s womb , and minor points like the true geographical position of the region of Pamphylia. Most interestingly, he added marginalia with typological cross-references to the Old Testament, summarising several sections with a brief sentence. Some annotations appear to be prayers (e.g.,  Custos Virginis que pro morte nostra adesse ) which we have not been able \u003cbr\u003e\n to trace, or notes jotted down in preparation for homilies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GUILLERMUS PARISIENSIS [with] AGRICOLA, Daniel","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820343763279,"sku":"L3284","price":5500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3284-2.jpg?v=1781794829"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-12_at_5.34.17_PM.png?v=1781282076","url":"https:\/\/sokol-books-ltd.myshopify.com\/collections\/antiquity-classics.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}