413 - P. Cornelii Taciti. – Five books recently discovered and pub…
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Estimate €1,200 - €1,800

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P. Cornelii Taciti. – Five books recently discovered and published together with his other works. – Rome, Etienne Guillery, March 1515. Folio, bound in full red morocco, with covers decorated with a triple frame of gilt fillets; highly decorated ribbed spine bearing the title and edition details; all edges gilt; double fillet on the edges; roulette on the inside (bound by Duru, 1853) - [1 title folio], and 242 folios numbered A8, B–L6, M4, N2, O–PP6, QQ8, as indicated in the register (QQ8), and A10 for the supplement containing the ‘Vita Agricolae’. Only folios A2 to N1, containing the first five books of the Annals, are paginated (folios 2 to 73). F. 2, verso: Philippus Beroaldus junior… Leoni X, pont. max., sal. - F° 3 v° Ph. Beroaldus to the reader, F° 4, r°: The first book of the Histories of P. Cornelius Tacitus, from the death of the divine Augustus. - F° 73, r°: The fifth book of P. Cornelius Tacitus ends in praise... Dei and Leo X, pont. max. – F° 73, v°: Phi. Beroaldus to the reader. These are the five books of Cornelius Tacitus, recently discovered in Germany and, under the auspices of Leo X... published for the benefit of the learned. - Folio O, verso: Franciscus Puteolanus to Jacobo Antiquario, ducal secretary, may he rest in peace. - Folio Oii, verso: Book XI of the Histories by Cornelius Tacitus, following the death of the Divine Augustus. - F° AA, v°: Book XVII of the Histories by Cornelius Tacitus, from the death of the divine Augustus. - F° NN IIII, v°: The twenty-one incomplete books of the Histories by Cornelius Tacitus and the conclusion of the remaining books found to date. - F° NN V, reverse: P. Cornelius Tacitus… A treatise on the geography, customs and peoples of Germania. - F° OO IIIIII, verso: Cornelius Tacitus… A dialogue on whether the orators of his own age are superior to those of antiquity, and why they should be. - F° QQ VII, r°: To my beloved son, Master Philip Beroaldo (Letter from Leo X to Philip Beroaldo the Younger) - F° QQ VIII, r°: P. Cornelius Tacitus,... Five books of ‘Historiarum’, recently discovered in Germany, and together with all his other works previously found, printed in Rome by Master Stephen Guillereti of Lorraine… in the year MDXV, the 15th of March, in the second year of the pontificate of Leo X. max., in his second year. – F° QQ VIII v°: the full coat of arms of Leo X – F° A, r°: Vita Agricolae. The life of Julius Agricola, composed by Cornelius Tacitus, his son-in-law... - F° A X, v°": Finis [Printed text] First edition of the first five (or six) books of Tacitus’s Annals. Although there is nothing in the text to suggest it, it appears that Book Six has in fact been incorporated into Book Five. Whilst, until the early 16th century, only Books 11 to 21 of the *Annals* were known, the manuscript of the first six books, which had been thought lost, was rediscovered by Jean Heitmers, a priest of the Diocese of Liège and an envoy of Leo X to the monastery of Corbie (or Corvey) on the River Weser in Germany. Heitmers extorted the manuscript from the monks and sent it to Leo X via Philippe Béroalde the Younger, President of the Roman Academy. As compensation, the Pope sent the monastery a printed and sumptuously bound copy of the work. The original manuscript is now held at the Laurentian Library in Florence. Printed on 1 March 1515, the book was the first that Étienne Guillery produced following the end of his partnership with Ercole Nani. A native of Lunéville (Meurthe-et-Moselle), Etienne Guillery worked in Rome as a bookseller from 1506. Settling in the Parione district from 1508 onwards, he ran a printing works from 1509 until at least 1524. The father of the bookseller Marcantonio Guillery, who was active in Rome between 1558 and 1562, he worked in partnership with Ercole Nani, a printer originally from Bologna, from 1510 to 1514. (Hubert Elie, *Lorrains et Lorraine*, Nancy, 1969, pp. 24–26.) A fine copy printed on paper with wide margins: height 307 mm. Bound edition, washed copy, trace of an ex-libris on the first leaf. A superb volume, one of the very few copies of this edition to have come onto the market in several decades. This first edition from 1515 recounts the long reign of Tiberius (14–37 AD). From the outset, he is portrayed as a hypocrite, and his story is that of a despot whose ambition, cruelty and mistrust are gradually revealed. Through underhand manoeuvres, he strips the Senate and the magistrates of all effective power; through increasingly frequent accusations of high treason, he decimates the nobility: aided by unscrupulous ministers (including Sejanus), who were driven by Tiberius’s mad ambition and devious manoeuvres, he finally stifles any aspirations towards moral superiority or freedom. Trials, scandals and crimes even reached the imperial family. Tacitus briefly interrupts his account of these lamentable miseries to compare his arduous task as a historian of the Empire with that of the chroniclers who recount the glorious exploits and heroic struggles of the Republic. Yet there is no shortage of successful campaigns, such as those led by Germanicus against Arminius.

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413 - P. Cornelii Taciti. – Five books recently discovered and pub… See original version (French)

413 - P. Cornelii Taciti. – Five books recently discovered and pub…
See original version (French)