Pliny | The first edition of Historia naturalis with the important textual corrections of Ermolao Barbaro, Venice, not before 13 February 1498

Plinius Secundus, Gaius (Pliny, the Elder)

Historia naturalis. Ed: Hermolaus Barbarus. Rev: Johannes Baptista Palmarius. Venice: Bernardinus Benalius, “1497” [not before 13 February 1498]

Royal folio (341 x 236 mm). Roman and Greek types, 55 lines plus headline, 3-, 6-, and 9-line initial spaces with printed guide letters. Collation: a–e⁸ f⁶ g–z⁸ &⁸ A–I⁸ K⁶: 268 leaves. Major initials in interlocking red and blue, other initials alternating in red or blue, red or blue paragraph marks, yellow capital strokes; first and final page a bit soiled, a number of lower corners restored with a few letters supplied in facsimile, occasional light marginal staining, small stain at upper margin, a very few unobtrusive wormholes in first and last three gatherings. Nineteenth-century cat’s paw sheep, spine gilt in seven compartments, morocco label in second, earlier red edges; joints neatly restored, extremities rubbed.

Apparently the first edition of Pliny to present the important textual corrections of Ermolao Barbaro, and so advertised on its title-page. Barbaro's Castigationes Plinianae were first published (without accompanying text of Pliny) in 1493, the year of his death. Based particularly on a careful examination and consideration of Pliny's Greek sources, the Castigationes is one of the major achievements of late quattrocento philology. Victor Scholderer noted that the Benalius edition of Pliny “closely follows … both in page-contents & quiring” the Brescian edition of the Britannicus brothers, 20 April 1496 (Goff P797). Barbaro's emendations are added to this underlying text by means of printed marginalia, presumably written in the margins of the copy of the Brescia edition from which the compositors worked.

The colophon date is 1497; the prefatory matter by Joh. Bapt. Palmarius is dated 13 February 1498 (Anno gratiae. MIID. eidibus Februari): apparently, Palmarius was dating according to the civil year, Benalius by the Venetian convention of year-change at 1 March.

REFERENCES

BMC V 377 (IC.22396); GoffP799; GWM34321; ISTC ip00799000

PROVENANCE

Unidentified contemporary marginal annotations, some in Greek (shaved) — Albertus Le Seure, medical doctor at Paris (seventeenth-century inscription on title-page) —Lavergniac (?, eighteenth-century signature on title-page) — Christie’s London, 28 November 2001, lot 40 (undesignated consignor)

We are grateful to Paul Needham for his consultation on this lot.