Beschreibung:

PLAUTUS, Titus Maccius (ca.250-ca.184 B.C.). Comoediae . Edited by Georgius Merula (1430/1-1494). Venice: Johannes de Colonia and Vindelinus de Spira, 1472. Median 2° (330 x 226mm). Collation: [1 4 (1/1r dedicatory letter by Merula to Jacobus Zeno, 1/2v life of Plautus excerpted from "auctoribus grauissimus", 1/3v table, 1/4 blank); 2-17 10 18 1 2 19 10 20 8 21-22 10 ξ 1 23-25 10 (2/1r-25/8v Comoediae , 18/1r blank, ξ/1v blank, 25/8v colophon, 25/9,10 blank)]. 242 (of 245, without blank 1/4, 25/9,10) leaves. 41 lines. Type 1:110R 2 . Guide-letters. First initial illuminated with penwork flourishes and foliage extension in colours, a hunter with drawn bow painted in lower margin aiming upwards at a stag, initial on 2/1 in colours with flourishes and foliage extension, 4- to 5-line initials opening each comedy in red with blue penwork, or vice versa , alternating, red and blue paragraph marks, yellow capital strokes, some early ms. quiring visible, late-18th-century foliation. (Very occasional very light brown spots, tiny corner piece torn away from fo. 106 (numbered 105) and repaired.) Late-18th-century French gold-tooled blue morocco, sides with corner ornament and fillets, spine tooled in compartments incorporating same ornament, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, green silk ribbon marker, gilt edges. Provenance : one contemporary marginal annotation added next to the Argumentum of the first play; Richard Franz Philipp Brunck (1729-1803), with name stamped at foot of spine (not in his sale at Strassburg (Leverault) 1809); A.A. Renouard (1765-1853), acquired by; Beriah Botfield in 1834, bought from Payne & Foss for #52.10.0 (P. & F. Acquistions, p.71). FIRST EDITION. The great popularity of Plautus's Comedies engendered many imitators, so that at one time 130 plays were circulating under his name. L.A. Stilo (fl. 100 B.C.), teacher of Varro, drew up a list of 25 plays which he believed to be authentic. Varro then established the canon of 21 plays which he considered genuine, and it is these that have survived Antiquity. One play, Vidularia , exists only in fragments and is not included in this edition, nor is it in most other early editions of the Comedies . THIS COPY HAS A DISTINGUISHED ASSOCIATION. R.F.P. Brunck, noted Hellenist and translator of Sophocles, Aeschylus, Aristophanes, etc., also edited Plautus for the Zweibrücken edition published in 1788. The sale catalogue of his library contained 3122 books, although this rare first edition is not among them, apparently having been sold privately and purchased by the renowned bibliographer A.A. Renouard. Renouard noted in his Bibliothèque d'un Amateur (II, p.308) that this copy is remarkably well-preserved and commented on the fine decoration. Although the collation given in BMC calls for a first quire of four leaves with the first blank, the distribution of watermarks shows that it is the fourth leaf of that quire which is blank. This is confirmed by copies described in Hain and Brunet. In all probability the extant first leaf in the British Library copy (IB. 19558) was moved to the beginning of the quire when it was rebound for George III. One page of text of the Stichus was incorrectly printed in the middle of Persae (18/10v), and was printed again as a singleton (ξ/1) and inserted between quires 22 and 23. The verso of the leaf is blank and the reader is advised to continue on the next folio. HC (+Add) 13074; BMC V, 160 (IB. 19556-8); Goff P-779; Pellechet 9524; IGI 7869; Brunet III, 705; Flodr, Plautus 1; Botfield 141-45