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Early Antwerp edition of Pliny's letters in an interesting blind tooled pigskin binding

PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS, Caius.
Epistolarum libri X. ad exemplar manuscriptum Rodol. Agricolae diligentiss. recogniti. Panegyricus Traiano Caesari dictus. Et is ad vetustissimum exemplar emendatus. De viris illustribus rei militaris & administrandae reipub.Acesserunt argumento non admodum abhorrentia. Suetonii Tranquilli liber de claris grammaticis & rhetoribus. Item. Julii Obsequentis, Prodigiorum liber. Latina interpretatio dictionum ac sententiarum Graecarum, quibus Plinius utitur. Indices duo ...


Some woodcut initials.

Some woodcut initials.



Antwerp, Antonius Dumaeus, 1542. 8vo. Extraordinary well preserved contemporary blind tooled pigskin binding; rolls with square and oval portraits and panels with passion scenes and saints on both covers; floral motives are stamped in the central spaces of the covers and in the four compartments of the spine; in the middle of the front cover, between two paragraph signs, the initials 'E' and 'K' are stamped and decorated with black ink. Some woodcut initials. 3 fly-leaves, 494, (40) pp. and 3 fly-leaves.

This rare Antwerp edition of the Letters by Plinius Secundus is virtually a reprint of the edition by Johannes Sichardt published in 1530 by Andreas Cratander at Basel. Sichardt (ca. 1499-1552) was since 1527 professor in Rhetoric in Basel. His dedicatory letter to Georgius Ilsungus (ca. 1510-1580), dated Augsburg, March 1530, is reprinted here also. Although the editio princeps of these famous letters was printed at Venice in 1471, all later editions, including the 1530 edition at Basel, are based on the Aldus edition of 1508 which added many new letters. Also the dedicatory letter by Aldus Manutius to Aloisius Mocenicus, a Venetian senator who had brought some manuscripts of the letters from France to Venice, is re-printed in our present edition.
        Writing in the first century AD, the younger Pliny (ca. 61-112 AD) was in a position to provide essential information for historians of a poorly documented period: the reigns of Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In his letters he comments elegantly on social, domestic, juridical and political events. His remarks on the early Christians are well-known and are very important. Nine books of his personal letters - 247 in all - survive, as well as his official correspondence with the emperor Trajan, posthumously published and later added as the tenth book. These official letters are a major source for understanding Roman provincial government.
        Of his speeches delivered during his successful senatorial career only the one of thanks to Trajan for his consulship in AD 100 survives and is known as the Panegyricus Traiano Augusto dictus, and is added on p. 321-405 of our edition.

Also included are:
  • On p. 405-448: SUETONIUS TRANQUILLIUS, De viris illustribus liber. Suetonius (c. 69- c. 130 AD) was a contemporary of Pliny the younger and is refered to in the letters of Pliny through whose patronage Suetonius had a military cereer in Britain and Bithynia. His De viris illustribus, a now incomplete set of biographies of Roman men of letters is arranged in categories: poets, orators, historians, philosophers. On p. 449-468 follow the categories grammarians and rhetoricians, published separately.
  • On p. 468-494: JULIUS OBSEQUENS, Ab anno urbis conditae quingentesimoquinto, prodigiorum liber imperfectus. Obsequens, the tabulator of Roman prodigies most plausibly lived in the 4th or early 5th century AD. His collection, based on the historical works of Livy, covers prodigies from 249 to 12 BC and is extant for 190-12 BC.

    • Further are added on 40 unnumbered pages:
  • p. (1)-(8): Latina interpretatio dictionum & sententiarum Graecarum quae hoc in volumine habentur.
  • p. (9)-(17): Index of the letters and famous men, grammarians and rhetoricians.
  • p. (18)-(36): Index rerum memorabilium, & propriorum nominum.
    • p. (37)-(39): Johannes Maria CATANAEUS, C. Plinii Caecilii secundi Vita: the life of Pliny by the Italian humanist Cataneo (living in the second half of the 15th century), originally published in the edition of the letters of Pliny at Milano, 1506.

    Very good copy in an interesting binding - Ownership's entry on the title: 'sum Wolfgangi Joechlinger Anno 1610 (?)'.
    ΒΆ Machiels 990; Belg. Typ. 4018.

    Related Subjects: 16th Century  Classical Antiquity  Greek & Latin  History  Literature  Politics 

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