Iuvenalis, Persius. by JUVENALIS & PERSIUS

(Venice, (Venetiis), Aldus, 1501) (Colophon at the end: 'In aedibus Aldi, Mense Augusto 1501') Small 8vo. 78 unnumbered leaves. Early 19th century calf. 16 cm An early Aldus edition (Ref: Renouard p. 29 no. 6; Schweiger 2,507; Brunet 3,629/30; Dibdin 2,150; Moss 2,151/156; Graesse 3,518; Ebert 11215) (Details: Back ruled gilt, boards blindstamped. A piece of calf of a slightly different hue laid in on the upper board. This is an early example of a book completely printed in italics) (Condition: Binding slightly worn. The leather on the center panel of the upper board has been skillfully replaced by another, probably older piece of leather. One small wormhole in the back. Bookplate on the front pastedown. Three very small old paper repairs in the first and last leaf. One small old inscription on the verso of the title. First 1, then 2, 3 and later 4 small wormholes in the right blank margin of the last 29 leaves, some of which have been skillfully repaired. Occasionally slightly foxed. A few small old ink annotations and underlinings) (Note: The Roman poet Juvenalis, ca. 55-140 AD, was the last and most influential of the Roman satirists. He 'uses names and examples from the past as protective covers for his exposés of contemporary vice and folly'. (The Classical Tradition, Cambr. Mass., 2010, p. 501) His main theme is the dissolution of the social fabric. He had a lasting influence on neolatin and vernacular writers of the Renaissance and later centuries. The other representative of the imperial Latin satire is the stoic poet Aulus Persius Flaccus, 34-62 AD. His stoic satires form one 'libellus' of 6 satires, together 650 hexameters. 'They are well described as Horatian diatribes transformed by Stoic rhetoric'. 'He wrote in a bizarre mixture of cryptic allusions, brash colloquialisms, and forced imagery'. (OCD, 2nd ed. p. 805) § Of the 2 editions by Aldus bearing the date 1501, this is the first and only real one. This edition can be distinguished by: the colophon, which is printed in italics, there is no printer's mark, and no page numbering. On the other hand, the second Aldus edition has numbered leaves, and the colophon at the end is in Roman capitals and has the addition: 'ET ANDREAE SOCERI.' Renouard has already proved that this second Aldus must be predated, because the cooperation between Aldus and his son-in-law started only in 1508. To complicate matters, Moss identifies also two counterfeits, printed in Lyon. They are easy to distinguish, by the differences in type, the many mistakes, and the absence of Greek type in verse 194 of the sixth satire of Juvenal. § The Italian publisher Aldus Manutius, 1549-1515, began publishing Greek books in 1494. In 1501 he began a series of 'pocket editions' of Latin and Greek classics, 'which did more than anything else towards popularising the classics in Italy. The slanting type then first adopted for printing the Latin (...) classics, and since known as the 'Aldine' or 'Italic' type, was founded on the handwriting of Petrarch (...) and it was first used in 1501 in the Aldine editions of Virgil, Horace, Juvenal and Persius'. (Sandys 2,99) Vergil was printed by Aldus in April, Horace in May, and our Juvenal/Persius in August that year. In the introduction in our edition Aldus recognizes the importance of a small book at a reasonable price. He explains that he publishes Juvenal and Persius 'ut commodius teneri manibus, et edisci, nedum legi ab omnibus queant, minima forma excusas publicamus', he is publishing the satires, he says, in a very small format so that they may more conveniently be held in the hand, and learned by heart, or even be read by everyone. The small pocket editions were a tremendous success from the beginning, and gave, as we have seen, rise to a host of imitators and forgeries. Among the printers who imitated small Aldines are in Lyon the Giunti, and Sebastianus Gryphius, and in Paris Simon de Colines (Colinaeus). (Provenance: Bookplate on the pastedown: 'D.O.M. Ex libris selectis Bibliothecae De Cingaris (1798). Parva, sed apta mihi, parta sed aere meo'. The text of the bookplate seems a variation of the inscription above the door of Ariosto's house in Ferrara: 'Parva, sed apta mihi, sed nulli obnoxia, sed non sordida, parta meo, sed tamen aere domus (See Wikipedia 'Casa di Ludovico Ariosto') (Collation: a-g8, h10; a-b4 (leaf b4 verso blank) (Photographs on request)