GELLIUS. A. Gellii luculentissimi scriptoris Noctes Atticae. Nunc denuo ab infinitis quibus scatebant mendis, summa ac diligenti cura repurgatae, atque pristinae integritati restitutae. Venice, (Venetiis), Apud Hieronymum Scotum, 1569. 8vo. (XVI),543,(1 blank) p. 18th/19th century half vellum 16 cm (Ref: Edit16, CNCE 20612; Not in Schweiger, Didbin, Moss, Ebert, Graesse, Brunet or Fabricius/Ernesti) (Details: Evidently a rare book. Not a single copy in Rare Book Hub (Americana Exchange). KVK (Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog) refers only to copies in Italian libraries. Marbled boards. Printer's mark on the title, depicting a winged leopard (a kind of griffin) carrying a winged orb or ball. Woodcut initial at the beginning of each of the 20 books. Printed almost completely in italics. At the end is a 35 page list of Greek passages found in the text with their translation into Latin, called dictionum graecarum interpretatio) (Condition: Cover slightly worn, especially to the extremes; back slightly spotted and soiled with some faint pencil stripes. Ownership entry on the lower part of the title erased. A pinpoint wormhole in the right upper corner of the last 4 leaves, far away from the text) (Note: The Venetian publishing firm of the Scotto family printed in the 16th century in 2 fields, it specialised in the printing of music and texts of the Latin classics. The Scotto firm contributed also in the area of Aristotelian studies. The most important of this printing dynasty is Girolamo Scotto, or Hieronymus Scotus. He composed music himself, but he is best known as the most inflential music printer of the Renaissance. He has even a lemma in wikipedia. When Girolamo took over in 1539 the firm had already earned great finance with classic texts, Latin translations and commentaries by various humanists. He made however a huge fortune with mass produced music. Still he continued to print texts of classical authors. An example is this Gellius edition. It has some remarkable features, it looks exactly like a Gryphius edition. It imitates the handy small format, the lay-out, the italic fypeface, the catch-words and the lectiones variantes printed in the margins, of the Gellius editions which Gryphius had published earlier. The books of this Lyonaise firm were often cheap pirated reprints of successfull texts, which were sold all over Europe. It seems that the Scotto firm tried to imitate the Gryphius edition to join in its success. Scotto even had the nerve of repeating verbatim the title of the Gellius edition of Gryphius which was published in 1556. Remarkable is that the editor of the Scottus edition very often took the trouble of swapping the lectio varians printed in the margin of the Gryphius edition and the reading in the text. The Scotus edition repeats almost verbatim the dictionum graecarum interpretatio of the Gryphius edition at the end, including the Ad lectorem. Scotus perhaps produced this edition solely for the Italian market, for KVK records only copies in Italian libraries) (Provenance: Old name on the lower margin of the title erased, difficult to read: Caesaris Crispoliti Perugini. We found one Caesar Crispolitus, or Cesare Crispolti, 1563-1608, a Perugian local historian, a jurist and canon of the Perugian cathedral. He is best known for his Perugia augusta descritta which was published posthumously in 1648. He was once the owner of a manuscript now in the Biblioteca comunale Augusta of Perugia, Manoscritti, 1058. He is described there as I.U.D., Iuris Utriusque Doctor. The library holds some manuscripts with lectures he held at the local Accademia. See manus.iccu.sbn.it//opac_SchedaScheda.php?ID=0000188440. His Raccolta delle cose segnalate, of 1597, one of the oldest guide to Perugia, was republished in 2001 by Olschki as «Raccolta delle cose segnalate» di Cesare Crispolti. La più antica guida di Perugia (1597). 1604 saw his dissertation Idea dello scolare che versa negli studi affine di prendre il grado del Dottorato) (Collation: *8, A - 2L8) (Photographs on request)
Book number: 120517 Euro 725.00

Keywords: (Oude Druk), (Rare Books), Altertum, Altertumswissenschaft, Antike, Antiquity, Gellius, Hieronymus Scotus, Latin literature, Noctes Atticae, Perugia, classical philology, römische Literatur