Beschreibung:

POETAE CHRISTIANI VETERES. -- PRUDENTIUS (348 - after 405). Opera. Editor Aldo Manuzio. -PROSPER of Aquitaine (ca 390 - ca 463). Epigrammata super Augustini sententias. -JOHN OF DAMASCUS (ca 675 - ca 749, St.) & COSMAS MELODUS (b. ca. 700). Hymni et Cantica, Greek and Latin -And other short works, Greek and Latin -- SEDULIUS Scotus (fl. 9th cent.) Mirabilium divinorum libri quatuor carmine heroico. -JUVENCUS (fl. early-4th cent.) De Evangelica historia. -ARATOR (ca 490 - ca 560). Historiae Apostolicae. -PROBA FALCONIA (4th century). Cento ex Virgilio de novo et veteri testamento. -SULPICIUS SEVERUS (ca 363 - ca 420). De vita et miraculis S. Martini. - Homerocentra, hoc est centones ex Homero , Greek and Latin Editor Piero Candido. -And shorter works. -- GREGORY of Nazianzus (329-389, St.) Carmina , Greek and Latin. - Historia evangelii secundum Ioannem , Greek and Latin. -- NONNUS PANOPOLITANUS. Paraphrasis Evangelii secundum Joannem. All Venice: Aldus Manutius 1501-1504. 4 volumes, 4 o . COMPLETE: 234; 294 (with the final blank); 234; 52 leaves. Roman type 10:82, Greek 3:84. 36-37 lines. Printer's woodcut device in two sizes (Fletcher 1 in vol. 2, Fletcher f1 vol. 3). (Light browning, minor worming and a few tears to some leaves, neatly mended.) Uniformly bound in red morocco gilt, covers with border of inlaid black morocco and floral gilt tooling surrounding a central gilt Aldine anchor device, spines in 6 compartments, gilt-lettered in one others with black morocco square inlays and floral gilt tooling, gilt and gauffered edges; turn-ins gilt and stamp signed by Lortic. Provenance : volume III: Guillaume Budé (1467-1540, classic scholar and Aldine author) "usui Fuit Domino Gul. Budeo qui manu propria qua ad oram libri apposita sunt scripsit" (autograph inscription on first leaf and marginalia) -- Firmin-Didot-(bookplate) -- Thomas Brooke (bookplate) -- Estelle Doheny (morocco bookplate) -- donated to SMS 1946. FIRST EDITION of the poetry of John Damascenus, Gregorius Nazianzenus, and several others. FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE ALDINE DOLPHIN-AND-ANCHOR DEVICE (vol. II). The emblem is first recorded in the last quarter of the first century A.D., on gold and silver Roman coins in the reigns of emperors Vespasian and Domitian. It was illustrated in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili , explained by the motto festina lente . This sentiment of making haste slowly suits the activities of a scholar-printer well and the device was employed throughout the existence of the Aldine press; it was (and is) also widely imitated. Aldus wrote two dedications to Daniele Clario for vol. I, another for vol. II, an explanatory note to the reader in vol. I, and three brief notes in vol. III. He decided to publish the Christian poets, so that children may learn sound doctrine rather than pagan fables and grow up good and wise. He explains his complicated system of imposition and interleaving the Greek and Latin sheets to produce parallel text of the original and the translation, and how this inevitably leaves two facing blank pages in the middle of each quire; these he has decided to fill with other works. In the Gregorius Nazianzenus (vol. III) he has used them for the Gospel of St. John, its continuous text therefore being dispersed throughout the volume. However, the Greek and Latin versions together being too long for the purpose, it is left incomplete and he promises to finish it by the same method in the middle of the quires of a planned bilingual edition of Nonnus Panopolitanus's verse paraphrase of the fourth Gospel. The Greek was already printed three years earlier (volume IV, 1501), but until now he has been too busy to do the Latin translation. This projected vol. IV of Poetae Christiani Veteres was never realised, but see Renouard 261:12 and Laurenziana 53 for the survival of the Greek sheets. THIS ALDINE COLLECTION OF THE ANCIENT CHRISTIAN POETS IS EXTREMELY RARE, ESPECIALLY COMPLETE SETS AND IN GOOD CONDITION, WITH AN IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION