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The roads of the Roman Empire and a late antique 'Michelin guide' of Rome

[ANTONINUS PIUS], Vibius SEQUESTER, Publius VICTOR & DIONYSIUS Periegetes.
Itinerarium provinciarum Antonini Augusti. Vibius Sequester de fluminum , & aliarum rerum nominibus in ordinem elementorum digestis. P. Victor de regionibus urbis Romae. Dionysius Afer de situ orbis Prisciano interprete.

Woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut initials, woodcut device (Vera Icon) on last leaf.

Lyon, Nathias (sic; = Mathias) Bonhomme for the Heirs Simon Vincentius, (between 1535 and 1548). Sm. 8vo. Nineteenth-century vellum, ribbed and gilt spine with brown title label lettered in gold, marbled endpapers Woodcut printer's device on title, woodcut initials, woodcut device (Vera Icon) on last leaf. 206, (1), (1 blank) pp. (collation: A-N8)

Second edition published in France after the Etienne edition of 1512, of one of the main texts - probably the most important - of the written sources for late antique cartography, topography and geography. The Itinerarium is designed to provide assistance for travelers. It records a network of itineraries over a vast area - the entire Roman Empire from Gadeira (=Cadiz) to Caesarea in Palestine and from Crimea to Alexandria - and lists the cities and stations on the routes that crisscrossed the Empire, including many roads (nearly 53.000 miles) as far as the frontiers and the last outposts, like those just beyond the British Wall. It has the distances generally in Roman miles (millia passus, c. 1478 m), but in Gaul in the local leuga. together with the distances between them.
Attached is a short 'itinerarium maritimum' giving a few sea-routes (pp. 107-15), a list of islands (pp. 115-17), the hills of Rome (p. 117), and a list of the provinces of Italy, Gaul and Germany (pp. 117-124).
Possibly much of the matter was transcribed from a copy of a general map drawn under one of the Antonides, Caracalla (211-217 AD), supplemented by various minor road maps. The Itinerarium must have taken its final form between 280 and 290 and is thought to be based on the figures provided by the department responsible for the cursus publicus, the Roman imperial road office. The text is often attributed to Antonunus Pius.
Our edition is undated. The heirs of Simon Vincentius were active in Lyon between 1535 and 1548, and the printer Mathias, or Mace, Bonhomme worked there from 1535 till 1540 and from 1542 till 1569. We date the edition therefore between 1535 and 1548.
Further editions - partly together with the geographical works of Pomponius Mela and Solinus were published by Aldus in Venice in 1518 and by the Giunti in Florence in 1519 and 1521.

Three other similar late antique, or pseudo-late antique texts are added to the Itinerarium:
- pp. 125-42: An alphabetical list of geographical names - rivers, lakes, mountains, etc. - occurring in the Roman poets, with special reference to Virgil, Ovid and Lucan, by Vivius Sequester (4th or 5th century). Several of the names do not appear in our copies of the poets; unless this is the result of carelessness or ignorance, the compiler must have had access to sources no longer extant. Newer editions include the Teubner edited by R. Gelsomino (1967) and the edition of P.G. Parroni (Milan, 1965). The text was recently studied by Pier Angelo Perotti, 'Note a Vibio Sequestre', in: Giornale italiano di filologia, 56 (2004), pp. 87-99.

- pp. 143-68: A sort of short 'Michelin Guide' of Rome by Publius Victor, De regionibus urbis Romae liber, probably a literary forgery of the 15th-century, the 'editio princeps' of which was printed in Milan in 1503 presented as a text of a newly discovered late antique author. It is a list of the streets and main buildings of the 14 regions in which Rome was divided: from the Porta Capena, Caeli montium, Isis et Serapis Moneta, Alta Semita, Via lata, to the Transtiberina, including several interesting notes added to the enumeration of the buildings, f.e. the capacity of the various theatres (Colosseum: 87.000 places; Theatrum Balbi: 30.000 places; Theatrum Marcelli 30.000 places; Circus Maximus 385.000 places (!)); the number of Obelisks, bridge, public baths, Nymphaea and libraries (there were no less than 29 public libraries in Rome (!)).

- pp. 169-206: Dionysius Afer, or Dionysius Periegetes' Description of the World', written at the end of the first century and faithfully translated into 1087 Latin verses by the eminent grammarian Priscianus (fl. c. 1500), one of the 'triumviri in re Grammatica' (the other two of the triumvirate being Donatus and Servius).

Very good copy, with ownership's entry on title: ' Ex libr. Adriani L'archevêque medici Rothomag. 1743' (Adrian the physician of the archbishop of Rouen (= Cardinal Nicolas de Saulx-Tavannes (1734-59)), and a bookplate on the fifth fly-leaf of Léon Duchesne de La Sicotière (1812-1895), whose library was auctioned in 1902.- (Tear in p. 69).

Baudrier, Bibliographie Lyonnaise, X, p. 202; Adams A-1230; Brunet I, 327 (first ed.); Graesse I, p. 152; Bernt Löhberg, Das Itinerarium Provinciarum Antonini Augusti: ein Kaiserzeitliches Strassenverzeichnuis des Römischen Reiches: Ueberlieferi=ung, Strecken, Kommentare, Karten (Berlin 1006).

Related Subjects: 16th Century Cartography Classical Antiquity Rome Topography Travel & Voyages

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