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The best text of the sixteenth century established by Lambinus

LUCRETIUS CARUS, Titus.
De rerum natura libri sex. A' D. Lambino Monstroliensi litt. Graec. Lutetiae doctore Regio nuper ope veterum codicum à multis mendis vindicati, nunc ab eodem recogniti, & perpurgati. Accessserunt aliquot ab Adr. Turnebo emendationes. In calce libri variae lectiones: et verum insigniorum index.

Title printed within beautifully decorated woodcut border, woodcut initials.

Paris, In aedibus Rouilii, 1565. 16mo. 17th-century vellum with author's name in ink on spine with the armorial bookplate of William Viscount Bateman pasted to the front cover, g.e. Title printed within beautifully decorated woodcut border, woodcut initials. (16, including the last blank), 287, (12, including last blank) lvs. (collation: *8, +8, A-S8, T4, V8).

Fourth edition of this important Lucretius edition by Dionysius Lambinus. The first edition had been published two years earlier by the same printer: Paris & Lyon, Guillielmus Rouilly & Philippus Rouilly, 1563. This edition was followed by two more editions in 1564 (of which one also by Rouilly). "Of very few languages can it be said that the first surviving major poem in it is an exposition of a philosophical system of considerable subtlety, but, first or last, Lucretius's 'On the Nature of Things' would have been a unique contribution to any literature. In it the atomic theory, the most vivid and tender depictions of nature, and a sense of the beauty and rhythm of words which triumphs over the early unsophisticated form of the Latin hexameter, all these combine in the most astonishing way to produce one of the grandest and most moving poems in the latin Language." (PMM).
Dionysius Lambinus, or Denys Lambin (1520-1572), was a French classical scholar, born in Montreuil-sur-mer in Picardie. Having devoted several years to classical studies during a residence in Italy, he was invited to Paris in 1550 to fill the professorship of Latin in the College de France, which he soon afterwards exchanged for that of Greek. Lambinus was one of the greatest scholars of his age and his editions of classical authors are still useful. His commentaries with their wealth of illustration and parallel passages, are a mine of information. His chief editions are of Harace (1561), this Lucretius edition, Cicero (1566) and Plautus (1576).
This 'masterly edition of Lucretius' (Sandys) he had founded on five manuscripts. Three of these he had collated in Rome, a fourth was lent by his friend Erricus Memmius, and the fifth collated in his behalf by Turnebus, was that in the monastery of St. Bertin in Saint-Omer (now: the 'Leiden quarto'); and he had also studied the earlier editions.
After the title with the privilege of Charles IX on its verso, a preface of Philippus Rouilly, a 'Vita' of Lucretius by Petrus Crinitus Florentinus (ff. *ii verso-*iii verso), follows the preface by Lambinus from his letter to Charles IX dated Paris, 1 November 1563 (ff. *iv recto - *vii verso) in which he claims to have restored the true reading in 800 passages, and we are assured on the best authority that the superiority of Lambinus' text over those of all his predecessors 'can scarcely be exaggerated' (Munro's preface of his Lucretius ed.). Then follows a laudatory poem on the edition by Jean Dorat on fol. *8. The following quire (+) contains an Index rerum insigniorum'. Lambinus has dedicated the several books of Lucretius' text to scholars as Memmius, Ronsard, Muretus, Turnebus and Jean Dorat.

Our copy comes from the library of William, 1st Viscount Bateman, of Shobdon Court, near Leominster, Herefordshire (circa 1695-1744). He was the son of Sir James Bateman. In 1720 he married Lady Anne Spencer, daughter of Charles, 3rd Earl of Sunderland, by his wife, Anne, daughter of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. He was made a Knight of the Bath in 1732 and he later died in Paris in semi-official exile.

Good copy with interesting provenance.- (Pastedown of front side half loose; without the extra quire * of four lvs., that appears to have to be inserted between quire T4 and V8, although nothing seems to be missing; some copies have this quire bound in the preliminaries).

Gordon 203; Sandys II, pp. 188-90; Adams L1662; preface of the H.A.J. Munro edition of 1886; cf. PMM 87 (first Lambinus edition, 1563).

Related Subjects: 16th Century Classical Antiquity Latin PMM Poetry

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