Details
ORIGENES (ca. 185-ca. 254). Contra Celsum et in fidei Christianae defensionem libri. Translated from Greek into Latin by Christophorus Persona (d. 1486). Rome: Georgius Herolt, January 1481.
Chancery 2o and royal 4o (272 x 214 mm). Collation: [110 2-148 15-1810 19-318 326] (1/1r blank, 1/1v letter from Theodore Gaza to the translator, 1/2r translator's dedication to Sixtus IV, 1/3r text, 32/5v colophon, 32/6r register, 32/6v blank). 264 leaves. 33 lines. Type: 1:112R. 7-line initial spaces at beginnings of books. Unrubricated. (Single small wormhole throughout, small repair in gutter margin of first leaf, soiling to first and last leaves, occasional light foxing.) 19th-century half sheep (broken).
Provenance: contemporary manuscript titles on first and final blank pages and marginalia to first few pages -- Walter Goldwater (bookplate, sale New York, Swann, 1 December 1983, lot 67).
FIRST EDITION. Origen's reply to Celsus preserves most of Celsus' otherwise lost "True Discourse", the oldest recorded literary attack on Christianity. All extant manuscripts can be traced back to a 13th-century manuscript in the Vatican Library (Vat. gr. 386). The original plan for a translation had been conceived in the early 1450s by Pope Nicholas V, who had sent to Constantinople for a manuscript of Origen's defence of Christianity, "intending that Gaza should make a version of it, but the task was not undertaken for more than a decade. Gaza was too busy and merely wrote a preface for the version when it was eventually produced by Cristoforo Persona" (Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy, pp. 80-81).
Two issues of Persona's dedicatory letter are known: in most copies it is addressed to Giovanni Mocenigo, while in a minority of copies, the present included, it is addressed to Sixtus IV.
This is the first of two dated books from the press of Georg Herolt, who may be identical with the printer who signed two other 1481 editions, using different types, respectively "Georgius Teutonicus" (Goff J-377) and, with Sixtus Riessinger, "per Syxtum & Georgium alemanos" (GW 6634). The type is a different state of the fount used by Eucharius Silber in Rome; cast on a smaller body, it reappeared 9 years later in Naples in books printed by Mathias Moravus (see lot 143).
Sheet 32/2.5 is a royal quarto half-sheet printed by folio imposition. HC(+Add) 12078*; BMC IV, 126 (IB. 19156-57); BSB-Ink. O-80; CIBN O-57; IGI 7032; Pr 3921; Goff O-95.
Chancery 2
Provenance: contemporary manuscript titles on first and final blank pages and marginalia to first few pages -- Walter Goldwater (bookplate, sale New York, Swann, 1 December 1983, lot 67).
FIRST EDITION. Origen's reply to Celsus preserves most of Celsus' otherwise lost "True Discourse", the oldest recorded literary attack on Christianity. All extant manuscripts can be traced back to a 13th-century manuscript in the Vatican Library (Vat. gr. 386). The original plan for a translation had been conceived in the early 1450s by Pope Nicholas V, who had sent to Constantinople for a manuscript of Origen's defence of Christianity, "intending that Gaza should make a version of it, but the task was not undertaken for more than a decade. Gaza was too busy and merely wrote a preface for the version when it was eventually produced by Cristoforo Persona" (Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy, pp. 80-81).
Two issues of Persona's dedicatory letter are known: in most copies it is addressed to Giovanni Mocenigo, while in a minority of copies, the present included, it is addressed to Sixtus IV.
This is the first of two dated books from the press of Georg Herolt, who may be identical with the printer who signed two other 1481 editions, using different types, respectively "Georgius Teutonicus" (Goff J-377) and, with Sixtus Riessinger, "per Syxtum & Georgium alemanos" (GW 6634). The type is a different state of the fount used by Eucharius Silber in Rome; cast on a smaller body, it reappeared 9 years later in Naples in books printed by Mathias Moravus (see lot 143).
Sheet 32/2.5 is a royal quarto half-sheet printed by folio imposition. HC(+Add) 12078*; BMC IV, 126 (IB. 19156-57); BSB-Ink. O-80; CIBN O-57; IGI 7032; Pr 3921; Goff O-95.