MACROBIUS. Macrobii Ambrosii Aurelii Theodosii viri consularis & illustris in Somnium Scipionis libri II. Eiusdem Saturnaliorum libri VII. Ex vetustissimis manuscriptis codicibus recogniti & aucti. (Edited by) Joach. Camerarius. Basel (Basileae), Ex officina Ioan. Hervagii, 1535. Cum privilegio Caesaris ad quinquennium. Folio. (XL),334,2 p. Vellum 30 cm (Ref: VD16 ZV 20513; Schweiger 2,586: the first mentioned copy with the privilegium and the corrections. 'Neue, schätzbare Recension von Joach. Camerarius, nach 2 Handschriften'. Dibdin 2,220: 'under the care of the celebrated Camerarius, and by the help of several important MSS. there was hardly a verse in the poets quoted but what received very considerable emendation. (...) A volume, thus intrinsically valuable, will not fail to find a purchaser at a reasonable price'; Ebert 12716; Graesse 4,330) (Details: Later vellum (18th century?). Brown morocco shield on the back. 2 thongs laced through both joints. Large printer's mark of Hervagius (Johann Herwagen the elder) on the title, and a different one on the verso of the last leaf, both depicting a three headed Hermes on a pillar. Woodcut initials, 8 woodcuts and a woodcut map of the world in the text) (Condition: Some small and almost invisible repairs of the vellum. Corners of the shield on the back partly gone. Title browning, paper yellowing, some slight foxing. Wormhole in the right uppercorner of ca. 80 p., not coming near any text. Pastedowns affected by a few small unobjectional wormholes) (Note: Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, a Roman senator and a classical scholar of the early 5th century A.D. 'was a notable link between the cultures of antiquity and the Middle Ages'. This edition contains his 2 most important works, the 'Saturnalia' and his 'Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis', the 'Dream of Scipio', a commentary on a part of 'De Republica' of the Roman orator Cicero. The 'Saturnalia' is a learned compilation in 7 books cast in dialogue form, in which the cultural life of the former generation is idealized. Macrobius' aim is to provide his son with all the necessary hard to come by scientific knowledge. He did so in the form of a banquet. Macrobius was inspired by the Ciceronian dialogues 'De Oratore' and 'De Republica'. 'Set during the Saturnalia of 383, it gathers several (conspicuously non-Christian) members of the aristocracy and their entourage to discuss matters ridiculous (...) and sublime, (...) above all the poetry of Virgil. Quarried from mostly unnamed sources - including Gellius, Seneca, Plutarch, and the tradition of scholastic commentary today known from Servius, the discussion presents Virgil as the master of all human knowledge'. More influential in the Middle Ages and Renaissance was the commentary of Macrobius on the 'Somnium Scipionis'. Macrobius uses Cicero's text (De Republica 6,10 ff) as the starting point for a thoroughly Neoplatonic treatment of (especially) cosmology and the soul's ascent to the One, with direct debts to Porphyry and Plotinus.' Discussed are matters of mathematics, physics, cosmology, astronomy, geography and ethics. He thus forged a kind of compendium of science and philosophy, which transmitted classical knowledge to the medieval world, and was to hold a central position in the intellectual development of the West during the Middle Ages. His books belong to the basic sources of the scholastic movement and of medieval science. His work left traces in the works of Dante, Chaucer, Vives and Spenser. (Source for M. and the quotations: 'The Classical Tradition', Cambr. Mass., 2010, p. 553). § Joachim Camerarius, 1500-1574, holds one of the foremost places among the German classical scholars of the 16th century. Gudeman calls him even 'der bedeutendste Philologe Deutschlands im 16. Jahrh.' (Grundriss der Geschichte der klassischen Philologie, Lpz. 1909, p. 216) He held professorships at Nuremberg, Tübingen and Leipzig. 'His numerous editions of the Classics, without attaining the highest rank, are characterized by acumen and good taste'. (Sandys, 'History of Classical Scholarship' 2, p. 266/67) Camerarius was a man of vast knowledge. He also wrote on history, theology, mathematics, astronomy and paedagogy. He seems to have been just the man for editing the encyclopaedic works of Macrobius. Camerarius had evidently a high opinion of himself and his talents. Such we gather from the following distich on the titlepage: 'Qui tamen et nostri numerum vult scire laboris, annumeret versus totius ille libri', i.e. he left his mark in every line of verse in Macrobius. This book contains furthermore an interesting Macrobian map, a map which for a 1000 years formed the basis of world geography. It was first printed in 1482, showing the continents in the 'Alveus Oceani', a big Europe, and a rather small Africa and Asia. The round map is typically divided in 5 climatic zones. It shows the pre-Renaissance view of the world, Antipodeans and all. Our map shows the awakening of the passion for exploration and the cartographic progress in this period. Africa and Asia have grown hugely, and Europe has shrunk considerably. The lines of the climatic zone on the first map of 1482 were straight, suggesting a flat earth, on our map the lines are convex, indicating a world which is really a round ball. And the Antipodean part has gone. No sign however of America. The literature on the development of the Macrobian world view is immense) (Provenance: On the front flyleaf in pencil '7 januari 1961', written by the Flemish linguist Walter Couvreur, 1914-1996, who was an Orientalist, and professor of Indoeuropean linguistics at the University of Gent. It indicates the date of aquisition. The place of acquisition he wrote on the flyleaf at the end: 'Turijn, Bottega d'Erasmo') (Collation: alpha - beta6, gamma8, a-z6, A-E6) (Photographs on request)
Book number: 027613 Euro 1800.00

Keywords: (Oude Druk), (Rare Books), Altertum, Altertumswissenschaft, Antike, Antiquity, Cicero, De Republica, Dichtkunst, Humanismus, Macrobian map, Poesie, Renaissance, Saturnalia, Scipio, Somnium Scipionis, Swiss imprints, Vergil, Vergilius, Virgil, ancient philosophy, antike Philosophie, classical philology, humanism, poetry, world view