Details
STRABO (64/63 B.C.-ca. 25 A.D.). De situ orbis. Translated from Greek into Latin by Guarinus Veronensis and Gregorius Tiphernas. Edited by Antoninus Mancinellus. Venice: Joannes Rubeus Vercellensis, 24 April 1494.
Super-chancery 2° (306 x 210 mm). Collation: π8 2π8 a-r \\e s-z &6 (π1r first title, verso blank, π2r table, 2π8v editor's dedication to Justinus Carosius dated 5 May 1494, a1r second title, verso blank, a2r dedication to Pope Paul II, a3v Guarino's preface addressed to Jacobus Antonius Marcellus, a5r text, &6r colophon and register, &6v blank). 165 leaves (of 166, without the first title; the two preliminary quires bound at end), a2-&6 numbered ii-cl. 61 lines and foliation, shoulder notes. Types 2:82R, Haebler 13:80Gk. 7- to 2-line initial spaces, one 4-line white-on-black woodcut initial. Other initials supplied in alternating blue and red (the first, on a2r, in black ink). (Light browning or foxing to 6 or 7 leaves.) Late 19th-century mottled half sheep.
Fifth or sixth edition, third Venetian edition, predating another edition of Strabo by the same printer (Goff S-798), dated 28 January [1494/95]. The Geography, Strabo's only surviving work, a geographical encyclopaedia of the known world, was based less on his own personal observations than on other Greek sources, now lost. Intended for the use of government officials, it surveys the topographical as well as historical and political characteristics of the principal regions of the Roman world, including Spain, Gaul, Sicily and Italy. The preface contains an interesting discussion of geography as a branch of science, and scattered throughout the work is valuable anecdotal information on the customs and technology current in the countries described. Although it suffers from a lack of order and above all from the author's neglect of contemporary Latin sources, Strabo's Geography "is nonetheless highly valuable in its exposition of the development of geography. It marked the first attempt to assemble all available geographical knowledge into a single treatise. A philosophy of geography, it is utterly unlike the mathematical geography of Ptolemy, the geographical parts of Pliny the Elder's Natural History, or, indeed, any other surviving work of ancient geography" (DSB).
The work was apparently unknown to the Romans, including Pliny, but in an epitomized form it came to be used as a schoolbook during the late Middle Ages. It enjoyed a resurgence of interest during the Renaissance, in the Latin translation by Guarinus Vernonensis and Gregorius Tiphernas, the first Greek edition being published by the Aldine press in 1516 (see following lot).
HC *15090; BMC V, 418 (IB. 23162); CIBN S-474; IGI 9175; Klebs 935.5; Stillwell Awakening VI, 893; Goff S-797.
Super-chancery 2° (306 x 210 mm). Collation: π8 2π8 a-r \\e s-z &6 (π1r first title, verso blank, π2r table, 2π8v editor's dedication to Justinus Carosius dated 5 May 1494, a1r second title, verso blank, a2r dedication to Pope Paul II, a3v Guarino's preface addressed to Jacobus Antonius Marcellus, a5r text, &6r colophon and register, &6v blank). 165 leaves (of 166, without the first title; the two preliminary quires bound at end), a2-&6 numbered ii-cl. 61 lines and foliation, shoulder notes. Types 2:82R, Haebler 13:80Gk. 7- to 2-line initial spaces, one 4-line white-on-black woodcut initial. Other initials supplied in alternating blue and red (the first, on a2r, in black ink). (Light browning or foxing to 6 or 7 leaves.) Late 19th-century mottled half sheep.
Fifth or sixth edition, third Venetian edition, predating another edition of Strabo by the same printer (Goff S-798), dated 28 January [1494/95]. The Geography, Strabo's only surviving work, a geographical encyclopaedia of the known world, was based less on his own personal observations than on other Greek sources, now lost. Intended for the use of government officials, it surveys the topographical as well as historical and political characteristics of the principal regions of the Roman world, including Spain, Gaul, Sicily and Italy. The preface contains an interesting discussion of geography as a branch of science, and scattered throughout the work is valuable anecdotal information on the customs and technology current in the countries described. Although it suffers from a lack of order and above all from the author's neglect of contemporary Latin sources, Strabo's Geography "is nonetheless highly valuable in its exposition of the development of geography. It marked the first attempt to assemble all available geographical knowledge into a single treatise. A philosophy of geography, it is utterly unlike the mathematical geography of Ptolemy, the geographical parts of Pliny the Elder's Natural History, or, indeed, any other surviving work of ancient geography" (DSB).
The work was apparently unknown to the Romans, including Pliny, but in an epitomized form it came to be used as a schoolbook during the late Middle Ages. It enjoyed a resurgence of interest during the Renaissance, in the Latin translation by Guarinus Vernonensis and Gregorius Tiphernas, the first Greek edition being published by the Aldine press in 1516 (see following lot).
HC *15090; BMC V, 418 (IB. 23162); CIBN S-474; IGI 9175; Klebs 935.5; Stillwell Awakening VI, 893; Goff S-797.