Beschreibung:

Augustine's De civitate Dei Nicolaus Jenson, 1475 AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius (354-430). De civitate Dei. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 2 October 1475. Second Venetian edition of Augustine’s magnum opus. Augustine, a native of North Africa, played a pivotal role in the development of theology in the Latin-speaking world. In the Middle Ages, “the writings of Augustine contained perhaps the most substantial body of philosophical ideas then available in Latin” (Kristeller). His works were central to the transmission of Platonic philosophy and “both Luther and Calvin took Augustine as the foundation of Protestantism next to the Bible itself” (PMM). This, his greatest work, was written in the wake of the fall of Rome, contrasting the fallible and frangible world of empire with the enduring eternity of the city of God. HC *2051; GW 2879; BMC V 175; Bod-inc A-522; BSB-Ink A-858; Goff A-1235; ISTC ia01235000. See Kristeller, “Augustine and the Early Renaissance,” Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters, I, (1956) and PMM 3 (first edition). Chancery folio (272 x 197mm). 301 leaves (of 306, without blanks A1, B8, and H8-10). (First leaf remargined at gutter, other repairs, occasional worming, marginal dampstain.) 18th-century calf gilt, edges red (rebacked). Provenance: marginalia in brown and red ink – "Eveque de Winchester a Farnum" (inscription on flyleaf) – Walter Ashburner (1864-1936, British law professor who settled in Florence; stamps on first and final leaves) – acquired from Philip C. Duschnes, New York, 7 March 1955.