Platon

1520 · réf. 4422 — Cologne: Quentel heirs 1520. 4to 194 x 140 mm. Collation: A-B4. 15 pages. Woodcut initial on title the latter in two sizes of large gothic types text in small gothic types leaded epigram on title and text heading in roman. Small stain in top of gutter margins small inkstain on A1v f. B3 corner clipped. Bound in early 18th-century South German pasteboards completely overpainted in imitation of a Renaissance binding: both covers painted in watercolor and gouache on a brown ground with outer panel of scrolling tendrils with red flowers and leaves central panel with arabesque foliate decor two vases at top and bottom and central cartouche containing a winged lion holding a book painted in silver on a black ground; flat spine with portion of a different painted decor endleaves of gold on green Bronzefirnispapier bronze varnish paper probably from Augsburg with interlacing tendrils and birds foxes rabbits dogs an angel’s head and a putto emerging from a bud thick paper flyleaves small tear to backstrip edges slightly rubbed small marginal repair to lower flyleaf. Provenance: contemporary inscription on title: Plus que moins que me d’amour or quie en amour et or est qui la scait servir; Maurice Burrus 1882-1959 bookplate and acquisition label dated September 1937 identifying Arthur Lauria as the seller. First separate edition previously unknown of Cicero’s translation of part of Plato’s Timaeus. Cicero's fragmentary translation of sections 27d-47b was highly influential in late antiquity. In either Cicero’s version or Calcidius’s more extensive translation of sections 17a–53c the Timaeus was often the only text of Plato found in medieval monastic scriptoria and libraries. The first separate edition of Calcidius’s translation was also published in 1520 by Josse Bade. This edition was intended as a schoolbook with its moderately leaded lines. The title page includes an epigram by one Ioannis Sartae Leodiensis Jean de Sarthe of Liège. I locate one mention of another copy in a 1902 catalogue of the library of the Gymnasium of Emmerich bound with two other Cicero Quentel imprints from 1518 and 1517 J. Wattendorff Katalog der Lehrerbibliothek Part IV Emmerich 1904 p. 21 shelfmark O 35. That volume was evidently destroyed in 1944 when 90% of the town was bombed. The most remarkable feature of this unusual book is the binding carefully painted on inexpensive pasteboards by an unknown early 18th-century amateur to resemble a 16th-century gold-tooled and paneled binding. The artist indulged in a certain amalgamation of styles viz. the central silver medallion containing a representation of the lion of Venice holding the Gospel of Mark. The lovely “bronze varnish” or gold varnish endpapers with their swirling tendrils among which are hidden animals and birds are typical of papers produced in Augsburg in the first two decades of the 18th century cf. Haemmerle pp. 72-73. These especially resemble examples produced by Georg Christoph Stoy. I have not found an exact match in the printed and online literature. Not in VD16 KVK OCLC ISTC Hoffmann etc. My thanks to Irene Malfatto for her help with the inscription. Quentel heirs unknown