GREEK & LATIN
~ CLASSICS
GREEK & LATIN
~ CLASSICS
German
RENAISSANCE Caesar — Lushly Illustrated
Caesar, Julius. Julius der erst römisch Keiser von seinem Leben und Krieg, erstmals uss dem Latein in Tütsch gebracht vnd mit andrer Ordnung der Capittel und uil zusetz nüw getruckt. [Strassburg: Durch Joannem Grüninger, vff sant Adolffs des heiligen Bischoffss, 1508]. Folio (31 cm; 11.5"). A6 Aa8 B6 C4 D–N6 O4 P–Z6 Zz6; [148] ff., illus.
All images of this book enlarge, via single-click.
This handsome and 
SCARCE book is famous for its woodcut illustrations: It has one quarter-page, four half-page, one three-quarter page, and 
eleven full-page woodcuts. These include battle scenes, the assassination, camp life, etc., all of the figures being dressed anachronistically in Renaissance garb.
The text is printed in large gothic in double-column format.
Of the first edition we find only two copies in the U.S. (Harvard and Stanford), and of the second we trace three (Brown, Duke, and Trinity College), all being incomplete except the Brown copy.
• Index Aurel. 128.654; Schmidt, Repertoire bibliographique Strasbourgeois, no. 91, p. 40–41; Schweiger, II, 51; not in Adams (who only lists much later editions in German). Recased in an 18th-century vellum-over-boards binding. Sophisticated copy in all likelihood, with several leaves apparently supplied from a different copy, those leaves being either slightly smaller than the others or more heavily sized. Occasional light waterstains in from a very few margins; two leaves with old scribbling in ink in margins; minor worming in lower margin of last six leaves. 
A very nice copy of a very scarce book that is clearly difficult to find complete, incomplete, or sophisticated.
Ciceronian Orations — Translated & with NotesCicero, Marcus Tullius. The principal orations of Cicero, translated with notes, classical and original by Captain John Rutherford. London: Pr. by H. Goldney for T. Cadell, 1781. 4to. Frontis., [1] f., xix, [1 (blank)], 499, [1 (blank)] pp. 
• ESTC T137815; Schweiger, II, 231. Contemporary quarter long-grained sheep over marbled paper; spine gilt. Marbled endpapers. All edges speckled brown. Sheep somewhat abraded and peeling, covers rubbed and chipped around the edges. Light foxing on frontispiece and title-page. Light soiling on last blank page. (11867)
“The
Highest
Bidder to Be the Buyer . . . ”
(Classics
— Auction Catalogue). A catalogue of a very fine selection of
Greek and Roman classics; also some voyages and travels, biography, chronicles,
and belles lettres. In fine condition, many of them large paper, and splendidly
bound. Which will be sold by auction, by Leigh and Sotheby...on Monday, February
8, 1813.... [London, 1813]. 8vo (22 cm, 8.6"). [2], 16 pp.
• Present in addition to those on subjects covered by the title are
works on contemporary politics and international affairs, among other things;
the unidentified collector appears to have had at least a passing interest in
Wales and the Welsh language, as there are several religious items in Welsh
listed, as well as an English–Welsh dictionary.
Although
it does not provide much information on condition or binding,
this uncommon auction catalogue has had each lot price inked neatly in the
margin.
• Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title label. One page (not the title) stamped by a now-defunct institution; pages otherwise clean.
Rare Variant — “WE” Binding
Detail — Sunderland Copy
Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus Siculus. [Operum lib. vi. priores, Latine Poggio interprete.] [Paris]: [pr. by Jean Marchant for] Jean Petit, [ca. 1507]. 4to. a–v8.4x6y4; 123, [6] ff. [bound with] Justinus, Marcus Junianus. Justini historia ex Trogo Pompeio quattor & triginta epithomatis collecta; acc. Lucius Florus et Sextus Rufus. [Paris]: De Marnef, [ca. 1507]. 4to. A8B4C6a–y8.4z6&4; [18], 140 ff.
Diodorus's work is here accompanied by Justinus’s abridged version of Trogus Pompeius’s history. Both books feature striking capitals and title-page devices. The typography of the first book is Jean Marchant’s, done for Jean Petit whose lion-and-leopard device is prominently displayed. The second book’s device shows initials of two of the three de Marnef brothers (E and G) beneath a pelican in her piety. This second book collates exactly like the Jean Petit edition of Justinus, printed sometime after December of 1507, and appears to differ from it solely in its title-page, probably reset only for insertion of the de Marnef device.
While one copy of Diodorus bound with Petit’s Justinus was found at Harvard, no record of the apparently extremely scarce de Marnef variant could be located.
Provenance: Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 3934 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882).
• Diodorus: Moreau 1508:64; not in Schweiger. Justinus: not in Moreau, not in Schweiger. On Diodorus, see: Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, 146. 17th-century English calf, panelled, with gilt fleurons and elaborate front and back gilt floral center motifs, each worked with a minute WE. (You need a magnifying glass, but this is THERE.) Overall, showing wear with
some leather chipped from spine, covers abraded, and joints starting. Pages mostly clean, with slight staining to inner margins from binding supports. Gilt cover lozenges still bright and the whole safe to be worked with.
Materia Medica — Ancient Knowledge Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos. Dioscoridis libri octo Graece et Latine. Castigationes in eosdem libros. Parisiis: Apud Petrum Haultinum (colophon: Excudebat Benedictus Prevost), 1549. 8vo (16.7 cm, 6.5"). [20], 392 ff. 
Click the interior images for enlargements. 
The work was edited by Jacques Goupyl, and is laid out with the Latin translation by Jean Ruel in side-by-side columns with the Greek text.
Provenance: Early title-page inscription, “F.M. ex dono Eduardi Davenant.”
• Adams D656; Durling 1135; Index aureliensis 154.341; Pritzel 2295. 18th-century speckled calf (front cover) and sheep (back cover) rebacked with lighter-colored sheep preserving original gilt-stamped leather title-label; boards scuffed and worn. Title-page with inked inscription as above (and in same hand, “Illuminat mentem Lectio.” First two leaves creased; first and last few leaves with light to moderate waterstaining. A very few marginalia in a tiny, neat, early inked hand. (20639)
 TO Part III |