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Lot 159

MACROBIUS (AMBROSIUS AURELIUS THEODOSIUS)
[In Somnium Scipionis] Macrobius Aurelius integer nitidus suoque decori ab Ioanne Rivio superioribus annis & nunc cura Ascensianorum multo diligentius restitutus... Addito libello argutissimo Censorini de die natali, Paris, Jodocus Badius October 1519

11 November 2015, 13:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

£1,500 - £2,500

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MACROBIUS (AMBROSIUS AURELIUS THEODOSIUS)

[In Somnium Scipionis] Macrobius Aurelius integer nitidus suoque decori ab Ioanne Rivio superioribus annis & nunc cura Ascensianorum multo diligentius restitutus... Addito libello argutissimo Censorini de die natali, elaborate woodcut title border with woodcut printer's device, WOODCUT WORLD MAP on leaf XXII,, one large woodcut in the text and 15 smaller woodcuts, without final blank, H5 torn in lower margin without loss [Adams M 74; Sabin 43657]; GELLIUS (AULIUS) Noctium Atticarum libri undeviginti, title in red and black with elaborate woodcut border and printer's device, [Adams G347], 2 works in 1 vol., numerous woodcut initials, very small single wormhole in lower margins throughout, repairs to upper margins of first 2 leaves and corners of last 3 gatherings (final 3 leaves with side-notes, foliation and one word of text affected), early ink marginalia and underscoring of text, contemporary blindstamped calf, restored and rebacked with loss of section of spine and upper cover, folio (325 x 205mm.), Paris, Jodocus Badius October 1519

Footnotes

Macrobius's commentary on Cicero, "the most satisfactory and widely read Latin compendium on Neoplatonism that existed during the Middle Ages," with "lengthy excursuses on Pythagorean number lore, cosmography, world geography and the harmony of the spheres" (DSB).

This copy has a good clean impression of his circular world map - differing from Ptolemy's concept in that the world is divided into a northern inhabited continent separated by an ocean from a southern continent. This particular version of the map is not recorded in Shirley (The Mapping of the World, 13). The second, slightly larger woodcut in the work shows three astronomers surveying with measuring instruments.

Additional information

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