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Second Aldus edition of the most important Roman work on rhetorics, from the library of Joseph Romilly

QUINTILIANUS, Marcus Fabius.
Institutionum Oratorium libri XII diligentius recogniti M D XXII. Index capitum totius operis. Conversio dictionum Graecarum, quas ipse author in latinum non transtulit.

Aldus' famous printer's device (53 mm.) on the first and last leaves.

Venice 'In Aedibus Aldi, et Andreae Soceri' (André d'Asola & sons), January 1521. 4to. Seventeenth-century (?) red morocco with refined gilt centre-piece within double gilt ruled border with gilt corner pieces on both sides ('Style le Gascon'), gilt inner dentelles and binding edges, (later) matching red morocco spine gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers, g.e. Aldus' famous printer's device (53 mm.) on the first and last leaves. (4), 230 lvs. (Collation *4, a-z, A-E8, F6).

Second Aldus edition - 'revised', but almost exactly re-printed page-for-page - of the complete text of the De Oratoria, on the teaching of speaking and writing, by Quintilianus (ca. 35 in Spain - 95 AD).
Quintilian's father, a well-educated man, sent him to Rome to study rhetoric early in the reign of Nero. In ca. 60 Quintilian returned to Spain, possibly to practice law in the courts of his own province. However, in 68 he returned to Rome as part of the retinue of Emperor Galba, Nero's short-lived successor.
After Galba's death, and during the chaotic Year of the Four Emperors which followed, Quintilian opened a public school of rhetoric. Among his students were Pliny the Younger, and perhaps Tacitus.
Quintilian retired from teaching and pleading in 88 and he spent his retirement writing his Institutiones Oratoriae. This is the only extant work of Quintilian, dealing not only with the theory and practice of rhetoric, but also with the foundational education and development of the orator himself. For Quintilian, the ideal orator or rhetorician was skilled in speaking and also a moral man (vir bonus dicendi peritus). The Institutiones can therefore be described as a treatise on education, a manual of rhetoric, a reader's guide to the best authors, and a handbook of the moral duties of the orator. Although much of what he writes is similar to Cicero, Quintilian emphasizes teaching. He was recognized by his contemporaries and exerted a strong influence possibly in the schools the Romans spread throughout the Empire. The influence continued until the fifth century. It was revived briefly in the twelfth century in France. The Humanists at the end of the fourteenth century renewed interest in Quintilian, especially after Poggio found a complete manuscript of the text in 1416 in the monastery in St. Gall. The editio princeps of Quintilian was edited by Ant. Campanus and printed in Rome in 1470 by Philippus de Lignamine. In the same year the second edition was printed by Schweynheym & Pannartz, edited by Giovanni Andrea Bussi; both edition were based on corrupt copies of the manuscript found by Poggio. A year later Jenson printed the third edition, skilfully edited by Omnibonus Leonicensis.
The present book, beautifully printed in italics, is the second edition of Quintilian by Aldus Manutius. The first edition was published in August 1514. The text is edited by Andrea Navagero (1483-1527), one of the young poets from the Paduan circle, who was working for several years on the texts of Cicero, Lucretius (1515), Virgil (1514, Terence (1517), and the notoriously difficult text of Quintilian in close collusion with Aldus himself. Working in the famous Venice printing House of Aldus, he emerged as one of the ablest Latin editors of his time and, as librarian of the Marciana in Venice, he played a great part in the re-organization of the long-neglected manuscripts.

On the verso of the title-page (unlike the first edition, mentioning the full title above Aldus's printer's device; the date '1522' is probably a mistake as the colophon mentions 'January 1521' as the date of printing) , is the dedication by Aldus to the Italian editor and compiler Giambattista Ramusio (1485-1557), the author of the monumental Delle navigationi e viaggi, a collection of geographical accounts of explorations. After the contents of the twelve books on two leaves, the fourth leaf contains the translation into Latin of the Greeks words Quintilian had left un-translated (in the first edition this leaf is blank).

Good copy in nice binding, with the armorial book-plate of Joseph Romilly and ownership's entry on fly-leaves and title-page: 'J. Boys'.- (First four lvs. sl. soiled, binding skilfully restored, re-backed).

Renouard, p. 93, nr. 14; UCLA 208; Adams Q-56; STC Italian 546; M. Lowry, The world of Aldus Manutius (1979), p.204, 233.

Related Subjects: 16th Century Aldus Manutius Greek & Latin Literary History, Classics Philology

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