![CICERO, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.). De officiis. -Paradoxa stoicorum. - Hexasticha XII sapientum de titulo Ciceronis. - Quintus HORATIUS FLACCUS (65-8 B.C.). Ad T. Manlium Torquatum (Carm. IV.7). [Mainz]: Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, 1465.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/NYR/2001_NYR_09630_0039_000(024653).jpg?w=1)
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CICERO, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.). De officiis. -Paradoxa stoicorum. - Hexasticha XII sapientum de titulo Ciceronis. - Quintus HORATIUS FLACCUS (65-8 B.C.). Ad T. Manlium Torquatum (Carm. IV.7). [Mainz]: Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, 1465.
Small 2o (225 x 157 mm). PRINTED ON VELLUM. Collation: [1-118] De officiis, 10/4r verses, inc. Tullius hesperios cupiens componere mores..., 10/4v Paradoxa stoicorum, 11/6r Versus xii sapientum ... in epithaphio Marci Tulii Ciceronis, inc. Hic iacet arpinas manibus tumulatus amici ..., 11/7v Apollonius Rhodius on Cicero, 11/7v colophon, 11/8r Horace, Carm. IV.7, inc. Diffugere niues, redeunt iam gramina campis ..., printers' device, 11/8v blank). 88 leaves. Types: 5:118G (title-heading, colophon), 3:91G leaded to 110 (text), Greek. 28 lines. Rubrics, colophon, and printers' device printed in red. Seven- to one-line initial spaces. Four large red and blue divided Lombard initials, two with red pen-flourishing, many smaller pearled or divided Lombards in red, paragraph signs in red, capitals touched in red. (Natural flaws to the blank margins of ca. 12 leaves, one [9/6] touching printed area, this and several other holes neatly filled with vellum before printing, tiny original holes obscuring 2-3 letters on ca. 2 leaves, small mostly marginal wormholes in the first six leaves touching 2-3 letters on some pages.) 19th-century green straight-grained morocco panelled in gilt, spine in five gilt-panelled compartments, marbled endpapers, vellum flyleaves, gilt edges (corners and raised bands slightly rubbed); red morocco pull-off case with monogram "CHPL" [Carl H. Pforzheimer Library] by Rivière and Son (scuffed at foot of spine).
Provenance: pious expressions ("Maria", "ihesus", "Ihesu nostra redemptio") added by the rubricator in blank spaces at the ends of lines on four leaves -- erased circular inkstamp, -- Munich, Royal Library, duplicate -- sold by Fidelis Butsch, Augsburg, 3 May 1858, p. 44, no. 664, to Asher, who sold it to -- Prince Michel Alexandrovitch Galitzin (1804-1860), Russian bibliophile: collation mark dated 1858; catalogue, Moscow 1866, pp. 52-53, no. 137 -- ["A nobleman resident in South Germany": sale, Sotheby's, 24 July 1930, lot 2] -- Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation: sale, Sotheby's London, 12 June 1978, lot 14 (to Quaritch and Lathrop Harper, collation mark dated 8/78).
FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST CLASSICAL TEXTS TO BE PRINTED AND ONE OF THE FIRST TWO BOOKS TO CONTAIN PRINTING IN GREEK. The Subiaco edition of Cicero's De oratore (Goff C-654) was printed before 30 September 1465, and Sweynheym and Pannartz's edition of Lactantius' Opera (Goff L-1), which included printing in Greek, is dated 29 October 1465. It is possible that Fust and Schoeffer's Cicero preceded both Italian editions. The Greek printing in the present edition is limited to the apophthegms which introduce the six sections of the Paradoxa stoicorum. Rather than cutting a complete Greek alphabet, Fust and Schoeffer produced nine Greek letters, which were used with sorts from the Roman fount. This edition, and its 1466 reprint, were their only ventures into Greek printing. In later works by Fust and Schoeffer, the Greek was transliterated or blanks were left for completion by hand, practices imitated by other printers. No other Greek printing took place outside Italy until the 1480s.
Johann Fust had been Gutenberg's financial backer until 1455 when he brought suit seeking to recover money he had loaned to Gutenberg during the period when the latter was developing the process of printing from movable type. By 1457 Fust had formed a partnership with Peter Schoeffer, his son-in-law. The first works issued by them were the Mainz Psalters of 1457 and 1459, followed by Guilielmus Duranti's Rationale divinorum officiorum (1459), the Constitutions of Pope Clement V (1460), the 48-line Latin Bible of 1462, and this Cicero, as well as a number of small tracts and broadsides. After Fust's death in 1466 Schoeffer continued in business until the end of the 15th century, publishing primarily liturgical and theological works. The present edition of Cicero, the second edition of 1466, and a Valerius Maximus of 1471 were the only classical works printed by the firm.
Cicero's De officiis, On Duties, written in 44 B.C. and addressed to his son, discussed the questions what is good, what is expedient, and how to reconcile the two. It was greatly influential in the Middle Ages, in part because it served in the fourth century A.D. as the model for St. Ambrose of Milan's treatise De officiis ministrorum, in which the Father of the Church treated the same topics in specifically Christian terms. The surviving manuscript tradition of Cicero's De officiis begins in the 9th century and continues through the Renaissance, when the text enjoyed renewed popularity among humanists. In the Paradoxa stoicorum, the shortest of his extant philosophical works, Cicero used the literary and rhetorical device of the paradox to present major doctrines of the Stoics. The work was cited by medieval writers from the Carolingian period on and attracted the attention of Renaissance thinkers. The small poetical texts found in this edition, the six hexameters beginning Tullius hesperios (H. Walther, Initia carminum, Göttingen 1959, no. 19546; A. Riese, ed., Anthologia latina, Leipzig 1906, I:784) and the Versus XII sapientum on Cicero's death (Walther 7951; Anthologia latina I:603-614), are found in manuscripts of Cicero's works from the 12th century. The tribute ascribed to Apollonius Rhodius was taken from a Latin translation of Plutarch's life of Cicero. Of all the classical authors whose works were printed in the 15th century, Cicero was by far the most popular. De officiis was printed at least 66 times and Paradoxa stoicorum 67 times; in 50 incunable editions these two works appear together.
A considerable proportion of the present edition consisted of copies printed on vellum. According to GW, only this copy and a few others have the printers' device. The text type of this edition was first used in the Rationale divinorum officiorum of 1459; however, in the two Cicero editions the type was either leaded or recast on a larger body. GW and BMC record variations in the printing of the rubrics. In the present copy the one-line title introducing the Paradoxa stoicorum was not printed (10/4v), but was supplied by the rubricator. The printed rubric at the end of Paradoxa stoicorum, which is not found in all copies, is present in this one (11/5v). On 4 February 1466 Fust and Schoeffer published another Cicero which was a page-by-page reprint of the 1465 edition. A number of surviving copies are bound up from mixed sheets of the two editions. The present copy, however, consists entirely of first, i.e. 1465, edition sheets, according to the census of characteristics given by Adams.
AN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE COPY. HR 5238; BMC I, 23 (IB. 108-110); De Ricci Mayence 84, no. 40 (this copy); GW 6921; H.M. Adams, "Cicero: De officiis et paradoxa, Mainz, 1465, 1466," The Library, ser. 4, vol. 5, 1924-25, pp.43-46; Lehmann-Haupt Peter Schoeffer 21; Proctor Greek pp. 24-26; Goff C-575.
Small 2
Provenance: pious expressions ("Maria", "ihesus", "Ihesu nostra redemptio") added by the rubricator in blank spaces at the ends of lines on four leaves -- erased circular inkstamp, -- Munich, Royal Library, duplicate -- sold by Fidelis Butsch, Augsburg, 3 May 1858, p. 44, no. 664, to Asher, who sold it to -- Prince Michel Alexandrovitch Galitzin (1804-1860), Russian bibliophile: collation mark dated 1858; catalogue, Moscow 1866, pp. 52-53, no. 137 -- ["A nobleman resident in South Germany": sale, Sotheby's, 24 July 1930, lot 2] -- Carl and Lily Pforzheimer Foundation: sale, Sotheby's London, 12 June 1978, lot 14 (to Quaritch and Lathrop Harper, collation mark dated 8/78).
FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST CLASSICAL TEXTS TO BE PRINTED AND ONE OF THE FIRST TWO BOOKS TO CONTAIN PRINTING IN GREEK. The Subiaco edition of Cicero's De oratore (Goff C-654) was printed before 30 September 1465, and Sweynheym and Pannartz's edition of Lactantius' Opera (Goff L-1), which included printing in Greek, is dated 29 October 1465. It is possible that Fust and Schoeffer's Cicero preceded both Italian editions. The Greek printing in the present edition is limited to the apophthegms which introduce the six sections of the Paradoxa stoicorum. Rather than cutting a complete Greek alphabet, Fust and Schoeffer produced nine Greek letters, which were used with sorts from the Roman fount. This edition, and its 1466 reprint, were their only ventures into Greek printing. In later works by Fust and Schoeffer, the Greek was transliterated or blanks were left for completion by hand, practices imitated by other printers. No other Greek printing took place outside Italy until the 1480s.
Johann Fust had been Gutenberg's financial backer until 1455 when he brought suit seeking to recover money he had loaned to Gutenberg during the period when the latter was developing the process of printing from movable type. By 1457 Fust had formed a partnership with Peter Schoeffer, his son-in-law. The first works issued by them were the Mainz Psalters of 1457 and 1459, followed by Guilielmus Duranti's Rationale divinorum officiorum (1459), the Constitutions of Pope Clement V (1460), the 48-line Latin Bible of 1462, and this Cicero, as well as a number of small tracts and broadsides. After Fust's death in 1466 Schoeffer continued in business until the end of the 15th century, publishing primarily liturgical and theological works. The present edition of Cicero, the second edition of 1466, and a Valerius Maximus of 1471 were the only classical works printed by the firm.
Cicero's De officiis, On Duties, written in 44 B.C. and addressed to his son, discussed the questions what is good, what is expedient, and how to reconcile the two. It was greatly influential in the Middle Ages, in part because it served in the fourth century A.D. as the model for St. Ambrose of Milan's treatise De officiis ministrorum, in which the Father of the Church treated the same topics in specifically Christian terms. The surviving manuscript tradition of Cicero's De officiis begins in the 9th century and continues through the Renaissance, when the text enjoyed renewed popularity among humanists. In the Paradoxa stoicorum, the shortest of his extant philosophical works, Cicero used the literary and rhetorical device of the paradox to present major doctrines of the Stoics. The work was cited by medieval writers from the Carolingian period on and attracted the attention of Renaissance thinkers. The small poetical texts found in this edition, the six hexameters beginning Tullius hesperios (H. Walther, Initia carminum, Göttingen 1959, no. 19546; A. Riese, ed., Anthologia latina, Leipzig 1906, I:784) and the Versus XII sapientum on Cicero's death (Walther 7951; Anthologia latina I:603-614), are found in manuscripts of Cicero's works from the 12th century. The tribute ascribed to Apollonius Rhodius was taken from a Latin translation of Plutarch's life of Cicero. Of all the classical authors whose works were printed in the 15th century, Cicero was by far the most popular. De officiis was printed at least 66 times and Paradoxa stoicorum 67 times; in 50 incunable editions these two works appear together.
A considerable proportion of the present edition consisted of copies printed on vellum. According to GW, only this copy and a few others have the printers' device. The text type of this edition was first used in the Rationale divinorum officiorum of 1459; however, in the two Cicero editions the type was either leaded or recast on a larger body. GW and BMC record variations in the printing of the rubrics. In the present copy the one-line title introducing the Paradoxa stoicorum was not printed (10/4v), but was supplied by the rubricator. The printed rubric at the end of Paradoxa stoicorum, which is not found in all copies, is present in this one (11/5v). On 4 February 1466 Fust and Schoeffer published another Cicero which was a page-by-page reprint of the 1465 edition. A number of surviving copies are bound up from mixed sheets of the two editions. The present copy, however, consists entirely of first, i.e. 1465, edition sheets, according to the census of characteristics given by Adams.
AN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE COPY. HR 5238; BMC I, 23 (IB. 108-110); De Ricci Mayence 84, no. 40 (this copy); GW 6921; H.M. Adams, "Cicero: De officiis et paradoxa, Mainz, 1465, 1466," The Library, ser. 4, vol. 5, 1924-25, pp.43-46; Lehmann-Haupt Peter Schoeffer 21; Proctor Greek pp. 24-26; Goff C-575.