Details
PROCOPIUS Caesariensis (ca. 500 - after 562). De bello Gottorum. Translated from Greek into Latin by Cristoforo Persona. Rome: Johann Besicken for Jacobo Mazzochi, 20 June 1506.
2° (282 x 202 mm). Collation: a-d8 e-x6 (a1r title, notice of privilege granted by Pape Julius II, verses on Procopius by B. Casalius, Jacobus Alpharabius Leoniss(us), Thomas de Petrasancta, a1v letter from Jacobo Mazzochi to Tommaso Fedra Inghirami, a2r text, x4v colophon, x5r errata). 134 leaves. Roman type, errata in Gothic type in four columns, shoulder notes. Three 5-line initial spaces with guide letters. Opening page illuminated by a contemporary Italian artist with initial G in gold on a dark red ground infilled with floral spray and filigree finely drawn in gold, three-quarter border of buds, flowers, foliage and stems in green, blue, red and gold, with gold disks and acorns, in the lower border the DELLA ROVERE ARMS, azure an oak-tree uprooted gold, with quarterings, suspended from a similar oak tree against a background of fern-like foliage. (Several mostly marginal wormholes penetrating the first and last half dozen quires, a few filled at ends, a few small marginal tears, some folds in quires a-c and x strengthened at head or tail, x5-6 short at fore-edge but conjugate with x1-2, some mostly marginal foxing, light stains to about a dozen leaves, offset from illumination on a1v.) 18th-century vellum over pasteboard, original (16th-century) gilt and gauffred edges.
Provenance: DELLA ROVERE FAMILY, illuminated coat of arms as above; "Saneti Andreae", 17th-century inscription on a1r; "ME", monogram on a1r; scattered 17th-century marginalia.
FIRST EDITION. The Gothic Wars of Procopius provides a contemporary and in part eye-witness account of the Byzantine conquest of Italy under the Emperor Justinian I (527-565). As secretary to the Byzantine general Belisarius, Procopius was present during the campaigns against the Ostrogoths that led to the temporary reunification of Italy with the Roman Empire, then based in Constantinople. During the Renaissance, the Gothic Wars was of interest to Italian humanists both as a newly discovered text from Antiquity and as a source for the history of Italy. Leonardo Bruni drew on Procopius for his De bello Italico adversus Gothos gesto (see lot 19). When Bruni was criticized for paraphrasing his source without identifying it, Cristoforo Persona undertook to translate the work anew, thus permitting readers to study the text in greater detail. Persona, a Roman humanist who served as Vatican librarian in 1484-87, also translated Greek patristic writings into Latin.
The Gothic Wars constitutes only a portion of Procopius's history of the wars waged by Justinian in his efforts to recreate the Roman Empire. The accounts of the war against the Vandals in North Africa and the war against the Persians were translated into Latin by the humanist Raffaele Maffei and published in 1509. Translations into Italian and French followed, but curiously, the Greek text of Procopius was not printed until the seventeenth century (Augsburg, 1607).
This copy of the Gothic Wars was owned by a member of the Della Rovere family, one of whose most prominent members, Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), granted the publisher a privilege that forbade anyone else to print or sell the book under pain of excommunication. Known for his patronage of artists, including Michelangelo and Raphael, Julius supported humanists as members of the papal curia, and in 1510 he appointed Tommaso Fedra Inghilrami, to whom the publisher's preface in this edition is addressed, to the post of Vatican librarian.
BM/STC Italian, p. 541.
2° (282 x 202 mm). Collation: a-d8 e-x6 (a1r title, notice of privilege granted by Pape Julius II, verses on Procopius by B. Casalius, Jacobus Alpharabius Leoniss(us), Thomas de Petrasancta, a1v letter from Jacobo Mazzochi to Tommaso Fedra Inghirami, a2r text, x4v colophon, x5r errata). 134 leaves. Roman type, errata in Gothic type in four columns, shoulder notes. Three 5-line initial spaces with guide letters. Opening page illuminated by a contemporary Italian artist with initial G in gold on a dark red ground infilled with floral spray and filigree finely drawn in gold, three-quarter border of buds, flowers, foliage and stems in green, blue, red and gold, with gold disks and acorns, in the lower border the DELLA ROVERE ARMS, azure an oak-tree uprooted gold, with quarterings, suspended from a similar oak tree against a background of fern-like foliage. (Several mostly marginal wormholes penetrating the first and last half dozen quires, a few filled at ends, a few small marginal tears, some folds in quires a-c and x strengthened at head or tail, x5-6 short at fore-edge but conjugate with x1-2, some mostly marginal foxing, light stains to about a dozen leaves, offset from illumination on a1v.) 18th-century vellum over pasteboard, original (16th-century) gilt and gauffred edges.
Provenance: DELLA ROVERE FAMILY, illuminated coat of arms as above; "Saneti Andreae", 17th-century inscription on a1r; "ME", monogram on a1r; scattered 17th-century marginalia.
FIRST EDITION. The Gothic Wars of Procopius provides a contemporary and in part eye-witness account of the Byzantine conquest of Italy under the Emperor Justinian I (527-565). As secretary to the Byzantine general Belisarius, Procopius was present during the campaigns against the Ostrogoths that led to the temporary reunification of Italy with the Roman Empire, then based in Constantinople. During the Renaissance, the Gothic Wars was of interest to Italian humanists both as a newly discovered text from Antiquity and as a source for the history of Italy. Leonardo Bruni drew on Procopius for his De bello Italico adversus Gothos gesto (see lot 19). When Bruni was criticized for paraphrasing his source without identifying it, Cristoforo Persona undertook to translate the work anew, thus permitting readers to study the text in greater detail. Persona, a Roman humanist who served as Vatican librarian in 1484-87, also translated Greek patristic writings into Latin.
The Gothic Wars constitutes only a portion of Procopius's history of the wars waged by Justinian in his efforts to recreate the Roman Empire. The accounts of the war against the Vandals in North Africa and the war against the Persians were translated into Latin by the humanist Raffaele Maffei and published in 1509. Translations into Italian and French followed, but curiously, the Greek text of Procopius was not printed until the seventeenth century (Augsburg, 1607).
This copy of the Gothic Wars was owned by a member of the Della Rovere family, one of whose most prominent members, Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere), granted the publisher a privilege that forbade anyone else to print or sell the book under pain of excommunication. Known for his patronage of artists, including Michelangelo and Raphael, Julius supported humanists as members of the papal curia, and in 1510 he appointed Tommaso Fedra Inghilrami, to whom the publisher's preface in this edition is addressed, to the post of Vatican librarian.
BM/STC Italian, p. 541.