Aelian.
Aeliani Variae Historiae libri XIII.
Description:
title within decorative woodcut border, decorated initials and ornaments, woodcut printer's device to last verso, uniform very slight age browning, minimal bleeding from yellow edge paint (now dusty), tiny worm trail to lower outer blank margin of 7 gatherings, turning into couple of insignificant single worm holes on a few more touching the odd letter, lower blank margin of B1 and lower and outer blank margin of G1-7 trimmed to, but not touching, text, last verso a trifle dusty,
pp. [16], 461, [19], double column (Greek and Latin text), 16mo,
contemporary dark brown English (Oxford) calf, lacking ties, triple blind ruled, blind-stamped oval centrepiece (in fine impression) with interlacing ribbons and tendrils, raised bands, diagonal hatching at head and foot of spine, and to upper and lower edges (towards spine), upper joint cracked but firm, lower starting, corners minimally bumped, minor crack or scuffing to lower corner of lower cover, contemporary autograph 'Robert Wallis' to ffep, contemporary calculations (book and/or binding price?) to rear pastedown.
Publication Details:
[Geneva:] J. Tornaesius, 1600
Notes: A good, exquisitely bound, clean copy of this pocket-size textbook for the study of Greek language and history. Claudius Aelianus (1st-2nd century AD) was a very popular author at 16th- and 17th-century English universities. Extant solely in abridged form, his Variae Historiae is a compendium of fascinating anecdotes on famous ancient literary, philosophical and political personalities, the natural world, mirabilia, customs and myths. He famously provided one of the earliest accounts of fly-fishing. A final section of this edition, edited by Justus Vultejus (1529-75), comprises extracts from A...moreA good, exquisitely bound, clean copy of this pocket-size textbook for the study of Greek language and history. Claudius Aelianus (1st-2nd century AD) was a very popular author at 16th- and 17th-century English universities. Extant solely in abridged form, his Variae Historiae is a compendium of fascinating anecdotes on famous ancient literary, philosophical and political personalities, the natural world, mirabilia, customs and myths. He famously provided one of the earliest accounts of fly-fishing. A final section of this edition, edited by Justus Vultejus (1529-75), comprises extracts from Aristotle's 'Politeiai' – an account of the history and organization of over 100 Greek city-states. The work only survives in fragmentary form, in a 2nd-century epitome by Heraclides Lambus, and is most often found as an appendix to Aelian, following the most common manuscript tradition. The exquisite contemporary binding – fresh and unsophisticated – bears a blind-stamped centrepiece, here in fine impression, found in Oxford c.1580?-1620 (Pearson, p.78), with the typical diagonal hatching on the spine and edges. It was in the library of Robert Wallis, who probably matriculated at Balliol College in 1602-3, and was awarded a BA in 1607-8 and an MA in 1611. He was later rector in Buckinghamshire, his native county. Wallis most probably witnessed the arrival of Christopher Angelus, a Greek exile from the Turks. After some time at Cambridge, he moved to Balliol in 1610; there, 'he became celebrated as a teacher of Greek, and his popularity was much increased by the scars, which he would display as a proof of his sufferings' (pp.114-15). Illinois, Columbia, Newberry, Huntington, UPenn and Newberry copies recorded in the US. Hoffmann I, p.9 (earlier or later eds). Not in Dibdin or Moss. Alumni Oxonienses (1891); H.W.C. Davis, Balliol College (1899); D. Pearson, Oxford Bookbinding (2000). HIDE
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Price: £1,000
Subject: Classics
Published Date: 1600
Stock Number: 69142
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