VIRGIL. OPERA Vergiliana exposita a Servio Donato, cum adnotationibus Beroaldinis, [first colophon: Lyon, ab Iacobo Sachon, 1517], 2 parts in one, folio, first Lyons Badius edition, text in Roman letter alternating with commentary of Servius in small Roman, commentary of Badius Ascensius, Filippo Beroaldo and others in an outer column of small Roman, small Roman marginalia, title to each part in red and black within a four part woodcut architectural border, 207 woodcut illustrations, 64 in the first and 143 in the second part, ranging in size from 2¼ x 2½ in. to 8½ x 6 3/8 in. (first title repaired and heavily soiled, dampstains at inner margins, most severe from N3 to N7, q1-2 browned, z4 holed with slight loss, small section torn from lower margin of V4, lacking second colophon leaf), old vellum. [Brunet V, 1282; Baudrier XII, 344; Brun 322; Mambelli 136; Mortimer, Italian Books II, 537; Renouard, Badius Ascensius III, 370; not in Murray, Rothschild]

Details

VIRGIL. OPERA Vergiliana exposita a Servio Donato, cum adnotationibus Beroaldinis, [first colophon: Lyon, ab Iacobo Sachon, 1517], 2 parts in one, folio, first Lyons Badius edition, text in Roman letter alternating with commentary of Servius in small Roman, commentary of Badius Ascensius, Filippo Beroaldo and others in an outer column of small Roman, small Roman marginalia, title to each part in red and black within a four part woodcut architectural border, 207 woodcut illustrations, 64 in the first and 143 in the second part, ranging in size from 2¼ x 2½ in. to 8½ x 6 3/8 in. (first title repaired and heavily soiled, dampstains at inner margins, most severe from N3 to N7, q1-2 browned, z4 holed with slight loss, small section torn from lower margin of V4, lacking second colophon leaf), old vellum. [Brunet V, 1282; Baudrier XII, 344; Brun 322; Mambelli 136; Mortimer, Italian Books II, 537; Renouard, Badius Ascensius III, 370; not in Murray, Rothschild]

Lot Essay

'These are the blocks designed for Johann Grüninger's Strasbourg Vergil edited by Sebastian Brant and printed in 1502. Grüninger's artist applied to the work a skilled hand and a lively imagination, and the Strasbourg edition is one of the most lavishly illustrated of classical texts. In citing the 1502 edition, A.W. Pollard (Fine Books, p.112) writes, "Grüninger's full strength was reserved for the Virgil ... which was superintended by Brant, and is crowded with wonderful pictures, in which on the very eve of the Renaisssance Virgil is thoroughly medievalised"' (Mortimer).

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