VERGILIUS MARO, Publius (70 - 19 B.C.). The Works. Translated by John Ogilby (1600-1676). London: Thomas Warren for the Author, 1654.
VERGILIUS MARO, Publius (70 - 19 B.C.). The Works. Translated by John Ogilby (1600-1676). London: Thomas Warren for the Author, 1654.

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VERGILIUS MARO, Publius (70 - 19 B.C.). The Works. Translated by John Ogilby (1600-1676). London: Thomas Warren for the Author, 1654.

2o (461 x 286 mm). Title printed in red and black. Engraved portrait of John Ogilby, frontispiece, engraved double-page map and 101 plates and full-page illustrations, by Wenceslaus Hollar, William Faithorne and Pierre Lombart, mostly after Franz Cleyn, head-pieces and initials. (X2 with short marginal tear, some occasional marginal worming.) English Restoration binding by the Samuel Mearne bindery for Charles II, gold-paneled and -tooled red morocco, spine in nine compartments with eight raised bands, decorated in dense tooling, royal crowned cypher in five compartments, gilt edges (spine worn). Provenance: Charles II (1630-1685) King of England (binding); Bradby Hall (bookplate); Brick Row Book Shop (morocco bookplate); acquired from Goodspeed's Book Shop, 1976.

KING CHARLES II'S COPY. Originally published in 1649 in octavo format, this 1654 folio edition adds the fine full-page illustrations by Francis Cleyn, who had illustrated Ogilby's Aesop in 1651, engraved by Wenceslaus Hollar and Pierre Lombard. "The illustrations are remarkable for their attentiveness to the narrative and descriptive details, yet it would be a mistake to regard Cleyn as a bland imitator of Vergil or an artist lacking in creativity and originality... He is both a skilled craftsman and, at his best, a subtle and insightful interpreter of Vergil. Cleyn's rigorous attention to detail stems less from a pedantic desire to transform word into image than from a deliberate attempt to serve a particular 17th-century aesthetic--one that that favors ornateness and an intricacy of design within a tightly compressed visual space He had a habit of bringing together several separate, though related, narrative moments in a single image" (David J. Califf). Wing V-610.

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