SUETONIUS. Caji Suetoniii Tranquilli Opera, et in illa commentarius Samuelis Pitisci, quo antiquitates romanae, tum ab interpretibus doctissimis, Beroaldo, Sabellico, Egnatio, Ursino, Grutero, Torrentio, Casaubono, Marcilio, Boxhornio, Graevio, Babelonio etiam explicatae, tum ab illis neglectae, ex auctoribus indoneis permultis, graecis & latinis, veteribus & recentioribus, perpetuo tenore explicantur. Utrecht (Trajecti ad Rhenum), Ex Officina Francisci Halmae, Academiae typographi, 1690. 8vo. 2 volumes: (XL, including frontispiece),932; (II),924 p., 12 engraved portraits, and 28 plates, of which 1 folding, and 1 double page. Vellum 20 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 833699237; Schweiger 2,978; Didbin 2,442; Moss 2,632; Fabricius/Ernesti 2,459; Graesse 6/1,523; Ebert 21930: 'Beste Ausgabe für die Suite 'cum notis variorum'') (Details: 6 thongs laced through the joints. Frontispiece by G. Hoet and T. Mulder, depicting 'Roma triumphatrix'; she offers a crown to a seated emperor, in the foreground the Roman god Tiberinus and the she-wolf with Romulus and Remus. Title printed in red and black. Woodcut printer's mark on the title, motto 'vivitur ingenio', 'one lives in one's genius'. The portraits are probably engraved by Mulder; the folding plate, a 'triumphus' and 3 other plates are the work of painter and etcher Jan Luyken) (Condition: Vellum soiled and age-toned. Old and small ownership entry on both titles. The book lacks one leaf of the preliminary pages, leaf ***3, with 2 short laudatory poems by the Rector and a Praeceptor of the Schola Latina of Zutphen, the school of which Samuel Pitiscus was once Rector. It seems that the binder forgot to insert a new leaf for a leaf which had been cancelled) (Note: The Roman historian Suetonius, born c. 69 A.D, is the most influential and best known biographer in the Latin language. He was appointed secretary to the emperor Hadrian, a job that gave him access to the imperial records and archive. He made good use of his sources, writing the 'Lives of the XII Caesars'; 'De vita Caesarum' gives the biographies of 12 emperors, from Caesar, the founder of the imperial line, to Domitian. 'Suetonius, like Plutarch, believed that a person's character could be revealed in small and insignificant details'. He 'organized his Lives by topics (per species) rather than chronologically'. (The Classical Tradition, Cambr. Mass. 2010, p. 912/13) Beyond simplicity and clearness he has no stylistic pretentions. He quotes verbatim from documents he knew, and shows critical ability. 'The great number of scurrilous anecdotes in most of the lives may be due to the nature of his sources'. (OCD, 2nd ed. p. 1020/1) Of another of his works, 'De viris illustiribus', a collection biographies of famous Roman authors, of Lucan, Horace, Vergil and Terence have survived, and his 'Liber de illustribus grammaticis', and his 'De claribus rhetoribus liber'. Suetonius was read in the Middle Ages. The Frank Einhard wrote a biography of Charlemagne along the lines of a Live of Suetonius. From the Renaissance onward Suetonius was neglected, untill the great edition of 1672 of Graevius. Gibbon praised this Roman historian for his strict dedication to historical truth. His editor Samuel Pitiscus (Samuel Petiski), 1636-1727, a Dutch classicist of German origin, was rector at Zutphen and from 1685 of the Gymnasium Hieronymianum at Utrecht. He produced editions of Curtius Rufus (1685), Suetonius (1690), Aurelius Victor (1696), and Solinus (1689). He did also lexicographic work, and published a 'Lexicon Latino-Belgicum' (1725). He produced also in 1713 a 'Lexicon Antiquitatum Romanarum', and an edition in 1730 of Pomey's 'Pantheum Mythicum'. In this Suetonius edition Pitiscus also accepted some Lives nowadays ascribed to Suetonius, a 'Vita Juvenalis', 'Vita Persii' and 'Vita Plinii'. At the end we find also the fragments of Suetonius, followed by 17 pages with inscriptions concerning the 'Lives of the XII Caesars', and an edition of the 'Monumentum Ancyranum', with the learned commentary of Lipsius and Casaubon. Pitiscus was not a great scholar, but he skillfully excerpted, compared and contrasted his sources. His editions of Roman historians offer the 'textus receptus' accompanied with the commentary and the annotations of specialists, taken from earlier useful, normative or renewing editions. Nevertheless he added much useful observations of his own. Dibdin is very positive, the edition is, he says, 'adorned with a vast number of beautiful cuts, which not only illustrate Suetonius's history, but likewise give a great light to the Roman antiquities. The same antiquities are also farther explained by Pitiscus's learned perpetual commentary on Suetonius, and extracts of nearly 900 ancient and modern authors, which he has collected for that purpose'. Or Moss: 'This is a very excellent and valuable edition, in which the industry as well as the learning of the editor has been fully displayed'. Ernesti is less positive about the ungrateful task which this hardworking schoolmaster has fullfilled: 'nihil est, praeter compilationes superiorum commentariorum, Lexicorum item et aliorum librorum de rebus antiquariis'. It is just how you look at it. However, this industry paid off. When he died Pitiscus left the fortune of 10.000 guilders for the poor of Utrecht. (Van der Aa 15,336/38)) (Provenance: Below the printer's mark an inscription that declares: 'Inservio Studiis Joannis Bernsavii'. In Wikipedia we found a lemma of one Johannes Bernsau, 1674-1750, who was mayor of Elberfeld. And on '30 Septembris' of 1690, the year this book was published, one Johannes Bernsaw, Johannis Bernsavii filius, Elverfelda-Montanus', matriculated at the University of Duisburg) (Collation: Vol. 1: *-2*8, 3*4 (minus leaf 3*3, cancelled), chi1; A-3M8, 3N2; Vol. 2: pi1, A-3L8, 3M6) (Photographs on request)
Book number: 130441 Euro 325.00

Keywords: (Oude Druk), (Rare Books), Altertum, Altertum, Altertumswissenschaft, Antike, Antiquity, Latin literature, Roman history, Sueton, Suetonius, classical philology, römische Geschichte, römische Literatur