[Timaeus]. De universitate sive de origine mundi libellus

1520 · (Cologne

by [PLATO]; CICERO (translator)

(Cologne: Quentel heirs, 1520. 4to (194 x 140 mm). Collation: A-B4. [15] pages. Woodcut initial on title, the latter in two sizes of large gothic types, text in small gothic types, leaded, epigram on title and text heading in roman. (Small stain in top of gutter margins, small inkstain on A1v, f. B3 corner clipped.) Bound in early 18th-century South German pasteboards completely overpainted in imitation of a Renaissance binding: both covers painted in watercolor and gouache on a brown ground with outer panel of scrolling tendrils with red flowers and leaves, central panel with arabesque foliate decor, two vases at top and bottom, and central cartouche (truncated) containing a winged lion holding a book, painted in silver on a black ground; flat spine with portion of a different painted decor, endleaves of gold on green Bronzefirnispapier (bronze varnish paper), probably from Augsburg, with interlacing tendrils and birds, foxes, rabbits, dogs, an angel’s head, and a putto emerging from a bud, thick paper flyleaves (small tear to backstrip, edges slightly rubbed, small marginal repair to lower flyleaf). Provenance: contemporary inscription on title: Plus que moins que ?me d’amour [or quie en amour] et [or e[s]t] qui la scait servir; Maurice Burrus (1882-1959), bookplate and acquisition label dated September 1937, identifying Arthur Lauria as the seller. ***

First separate edition, previously unknown, of Cicero’s translation of part of Plato’s Timaeus. Cicero's fragmentary translation (of sections 27d-47b) was highly influential in late antiquity. In either Cicero’s version or Calcidius’s more extensive translation (of sections 17a–53c), the Timaeus was often the only text of Plato found in medieval monastic scriptoria and libraries. The first separate edition of Calcidius’s translation was also published in 1520, by Josse Bade.

This edition was intended as a schoolbook, with its moderately leaded lines. The title page includes an epigram by one Ioannis Sartae Leodiensis (Jean de Sarthe? of Liège). I locate one mention of another copy, in a 1902 catalogue of the library of the Gymnasium of Emmerich, bound with two other Cicero Quentel imprints from 1518 and 1517 (J. Wattendorff, Katalog der Lehrerbibliothek, Part IV, Emmerich 1904, p. 21, shelfmark O 35). That volume was evidently destroyed in 1944, when 90% of the town was bombed.

The most remarkable feature of this unusual book is the binding, carefully painted on inexpensive pasteboards by an unknown early 18th-century amateur to resemble a 16th-century gold-tooled and paneled binding. The artist indulged in a certain amalgamation of styles (viz. the central silver medallion, containing a representation of the lion of Venice holding the Gospel of Mark).

The lovely “bronze varnish” or gold varnish endpapers, with their swirling tendrils among which are hidden animals and birds, are typical of papers produced in Augsburg in the first two decades of the 18th century (cf. Haemmerle, pp. 72-73). These especially resemble examples produced by Georg Christoph Stoy. I have not found an exact match in the printed and online literature.

Not in VD16, KVK, OCLC, ISTC, Hoffmann, etc. My thanks to Irene Malfatto for her help with the inscription. (Inventory #: 4422)

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[Timaeus]. De universitate sive de origine mundi libellus

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1520 · (Cologne

Musinsky Rare Books, Inc.

Directorium cathedrali ecclesiae Litomericensi ad S. Stephanum proto-martyrem proprium, Authoritate et Mandato .... Emmmanuelis Ernesti ... de Waldstein Episcopi Litomericensis

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