Ovidius Naso. XV Metamorphoseon Librorum figurae elegantissime a Crispiano Passeo laminis aeneis incisae, [n.p.], apud Crisp. Passaeum et Joannem Jansonium typographium, [n.d.] [before 1607], 4to, COLBERT'S COPY with his signature on the title page, engraved title and 120 (of 134) plates only by CRISPIN VAN DER PASSE, some after Martin de Voss, with engraved verse followed by printed text in Latin and German printed in parallel columns (title restored at outer margin, plates 13 and 120 torn with some loss of text and repaired), old calf with Colbert's arms stamped in gilt on sides (rebacked). [Franken, Oeuvre Gravé des Van de Passe, 254]

Details

Ovidius Naso. XV Metamorphoseon Librorum figurae elegantissime a Crispiano Passeo laminis aeneis incisae, [n.p.], apud Crisp. Passaeum et Joannem Jansonium typographium, [n.d.] [before 1607], 4to, COLBERT'S COPY with his signature on the title page, engraved title and 120 (of 134) plates only by CRISPIN VAN DER PASSE, some after Martin de Voss, with engraved verse followed by printed text in Latin and German printed in parallel columns (title restored at outer margin, plates 13 and 120 torn with some loss of text and repaired), old calf with Colbert's arms stamped in gilt on sides (rebacked). [Franken, Oeuvre Gravé des Van de Passe, 254]

Lot Essay

Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83), finance minister of Louis XIV, formed a great library of his own, besides extending and reorganising the royal library. The pages of his copy appear to be proof sheets with the pagination badly misplaced, and were presumably bound up before all the plates were finished, stopping at the second plate of Book XIV. The work was not completed until 1607, when it contained the 15 books with 134 plates, but when completed plate 92 which appears in this volume was cancelled and another plate substituted. This copy may be the only one with the uncancelled plate 92.

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