signed Hardcover
1534 · Basel
by Virgil. Virgilius Maro, Publius (70-19 B.C.)
Basel: Apud Ioan. Valderum, 1534. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in contemporary alum-tawed pigskin over beveled wooden boards, (binding rubbed and soiled, one clasp broken.) The binding is signed a dated “C.B. 1540”. The boards are ornately tooled in blind with decorative rolls: sheaves of wheat, ornate urns, and female personifications of the virtues Justice, Prudence, Chastity and Honor (represented by Lucretia). This volume, announced as “Pars prima” on the title, contains the full texts of Virgil’s Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid, as well as the commentary of Servius. In his letter to the reader (on the verso of the title page) the publisher, Johann Walder, explained that a second volume, with the annotations and commentaries of learned scholars, was soon to follow. However, no such volume ever materialized.
The edition is based on that of Giovanni Battista Egnazio (Cipelli) (1478-1553), Italian orator, author, and professor of eloquence in Venice from c.1520-50, whose edition was printed at Venice in 1507. Walser has included Egnazio’s original introduction and letter to the reader. The text of the Virgilian poems is surrounded on three sides by the ancient commentary of Servius (4th c. A.D.), a work of indispensable value for our understanding -and reconstruction- of Virgil’s text.
Walder’s printer’s device (a parrot sitting on a branch) appears on the title page and the final leaf. The text is decorated with small, very fine woodcut historiated initials. Eclogues 6 through 9 have been annotated by a sixteenth-century reader. Internally a fine copy with wide margins and only minor blemishes as follows: title a little soiled and with neat inscriptions, a few small marginal stains in gathering a, small rust marks on leaves Z3 and 4, a few other trivial marginal stains on scattered leaves, and a small round oil stain and a light dampstain to the final five leaves. Title with stamp of the Oratoire de France, École de Théologie. 19th c. ownership inscription on flyleaf.
There is a 16th c. ownership inscription on the title page, “Iohannes Conradus ab Ulm, Scaphusianus”. This is certainly the Swiss reformer Johann Konrad Ulmer, of Schaffhausen (1519-1600), who went to Basel to study in 1537, lodging with the theologian and classicist Simon Gyrnaeus. It is in Basel that Ulmer would have purchased this copy of Virgil. The annotations in the Eclogues are almost certainly his. (Inventory #: 4945)
The edition is based on that of Giovanni Battista Egnazio (Cipelli) (1478-1553), Italian orator, author, and professor of eloquence in Venice from c.1520-50, whose edition was printed at Venice in 1507. Walser has included Egnazio’s original introduction and letter to the reader. The text of the Virgilian poems is surrounded on three sides by the ancient commentary of Servius (4th c. A.D.), a work of indispensable value for our understanding -and reconstruction- of Virgil’s text.
Walder’s printer’s device (a parrot sitting on a branch) appears on the title page and the final leaf. The text is decorated with small, very fine woodcut historiated initials. Eclogues 6 through 9 have been annotated by a sixteenth-century reader. Internally a fine copy with wide margins and only minor blemishes as follows: title a little soiled and with neat inscriptions, a few small marginal stains in gathering a, small rust marks on leaves Z3 and 4, a few other trivial marginal stains on scattered leaves, and a small round oil stain and a light dampstain to the final five leaves. Title with stamp of the Oratoire de France, École de Théologie. 19th c. ownership inscription on flyleaf.
There is a 16th c. ownership inscription on the title page, “Iohannes Conradus ab Ulm, Scaphusianus”. This is certainly the Swiss reformer Johann Konrad Ulmer, of Schaffhausen (1519-1600), who went to Basel to study in 1537, lodging with the theologian and classicist Simon Gyrnaeus. It is in Basel that Ulmer would have purchased this copy of Virgil. The annotations in the Eclogues are almost certainly his. (Inventory #: 4945)
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