£1,000 - £1,500
Plautus
Comediae XX, ex antiquis, recentioribusque exemplaribus invicem collatis, diligentissime re gognitae.
Paris, Robert Estienne, 27 Jan. 1530.
Printer's olive tree device on title-page (Schreiber no. 3).
4to. [10], 256ff. Finely bound in 18th century French olive morocco, wide ornamental gilt dentelle border, spine gilt in compartments. Bookplate of Glenmore Whitney Davis. 300mm x 220mm.
A very important edition of the comedies of Plautus which was instrumental in the forming of Estienne's highly influential Thesaurus "in which Estienne had virtually founded modern Latin lexicography" (thus replacing the outdated work of Calepinus). Estienne had failed to persuade any suitable scholar to compile a new Latin dictionary and so prepared for this work by reading and making exhaustive notes on the whole of Terence and Plautus; these notes were then written out and put in alphabetical order to form the basis of the new work. The Plautus appeared a year before the Thesaurus but is not clear whether this edition had already been projected, or whether it was a by product of the dictionary.
Generally a good large copy with only a little staining to the last 100 leaves or so. Adams P1489. Schreiber 43. Renouard 34, no. 11.
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