Beschreibung:

CORNELIUS NEPOS (ca.99-ca.24 B.C.). Vitae imperatorum sive De vita illustrium virorum . Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 8 March 1471. Royal half-sheet 4° (250 x 180mm). Collation: [1-6 10 . 8 ] (1/1 and 6/8 blank). 52 (of 54, without blank 1/1 and 6/8) leaves. 31 or 32 lines. Type 1:115R. Initials on 1/2 stencilled in red, the first initial, drop-title and incipit painted over in liquid gold at a later date, other initial spaces (5- to 6-lines) blank, some spaces for Greek. (Two early manuscript corrections on fo.13v.) Early-19th-century French gold-tooled blue straight-grained morocco over pasteboard, sides with border of roll-tools in gilt and blind, spine tooled in compartments, gilt roll-tooled turn-ins, gilt edges, (recased with blue endpapers and padded with 56 leaves of wove paper watermarked 1819). Provenance : Beriah Botfield, acquired from Payne & Foss for #4.4.0 (P. & F. Acquisitions, p.65), the price pencilled on front free endleaf. FIRST EDITION. Originally sixteen books in eight pairs with each pair consisting of a biography of one Roman and one non-Roman leader, historian, orator, or other famous personality, only 23 lives of non-Roman generals have survived of the De vita illustrium virorum , plus lives of Cato and Atticus, much revered by Nepos. Catullus thought so highly of Nepos that he dedicated his Carmina to him. This edition, as all incunable editions, is ascribed to the fourth-century Aemilius Probus. HC *5733; BMC V, 167 (IB. 19620-22); Goff C-915; IGI 3211; Flodr, Nepos 1