STRABO (64/63 B.C.- circa 25 A.D.)

Geographia

      [translated from Greek into Latin by Gregorius Tifernas and Guarino Veronese; edited by Giovanni Andrea, bishop of Aleria]: Venice: Vindelinus de Spira, 1472. Folio. (15 5/8 x 10 7/8 inches). [219] leaves including the first and last blank leaves. 51 lines. Roman type 1:110R2 and Greek type 110. Capital spaces, with guide-letters; also some spaces for Greek. 17th-century Italian vellum over pasteboard, later red/orange morocco leather spine label decorated and lettered in gilt, early ink inscription "STRABON" to foredge. Provenance: early printers or binders marks to lower right corner of the recto of a number of leaves; W. Taylor (manuscript note of sale "Apr 1813 W. Taylors II Sale / £15:7:6 / Thorpe & Com." written by); Richard Heber (1773-1833); George Dunn (1865-1912, Woolley Hall, Maidenhead, bookplate and collation notes and references, initialled and dated 'Dec. 1896', sale Sotheby's 29 November 1917, lot 3755, sold to Quaritch for £30.11s, ?acting for); C.S. Ascherson (d. 1945, bookplate); Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (price note dated 1947, collation note dated 30 April 1982). A very fine incunable edition of one of the earliest and most important works on historical geography, printed at the first press to be established in Venice: the Taylor/Heber/Dunn/Ascherson copy of the second edition of Strabo in almost miraculous condition. A spectacular, fresh, unsophisticated, wide-margined copy printed in the elegant de Spira Roman type in a clear and dark impression by the first Venetian press. The book seems to have been bound (or at least cased) in Italy in the late 17th century, but retains eight leaves of contemporary blank paper (with the same watermark as the text block). Also present are the 'point holes' that were made by the printer during the production of the book, and a number of leaves have the manuscript marks used by the printer/original binder to collate the leaves. The second edition of the Greek geographer Strabo's Geographia, and the first Venetian and first dated edition, based on the first Latin edition printed in Rome by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1469. One of the earliest and most important scientific treatises on historical geography, and Strabo's only surviving work, the Geographia represents an initial attempt to compile geographical knowledge in a unified manner. The work provides a survey of the topographical, historical, and political characteristics of the principal regions of the Roman world, also including information concerning philosophy, political theory, geology, mathematics, science, and history. Strabo (ca. 64 BCE - 21 CE) was born in present-day Turkey and as a youth travelled and studied in the Mediterranean and Egypt. He retired to his home town of Amasia and composed his monumental geography, probably composed in the last three or four years of his life. In updating the work of Erastothenes (third century BCE), the first systematic geographer, Strabo relied on other Greek geographers but incorporated little of later Roman records. Following Erastothenes, Strabo presented the world as a single landmass surrounded by ocean on the northern half of a sphere, immobile within a revolving universe. His descriptions of the Mediterranean area, Asia Minor, and Egypt are considered extremely accurate, while those of Gaul, Britain, and Greece less so. Generally not known until the fifth century CE, Strabo's work came to be the standard geographical reference during the Middle Ages. "A geographical encyclopedia written for the information of governmental officials and travellers and containing much regarding the customs and usages of various countries that is of technological interest" (Stillwell) George Dunn was one of the most important scholar/collectors of incunables from about 1885 until his death in 1912. His library was then dispersed by Sotheby's in a series of three sales from 1913 to 1917. His collection was important enough to warrant the publication by the Oxford Bibliographical Society of A List of the Icunabula Collected by George Dunn Arranged to Illustrate the History of Printing (Oxford: 1923) by Francis Jenkinson. The present work was included in the final Sotheby's sale and is noted by Jenkinson. Dunn's obituary on 11 March 1912 in The Times (of London) noted that Dunn particularly sought out undescribed and rare editions, and this is bourne out in the present instance: no copy of this edition is listed as having sold at auction in the last thirty years. However, a copy of the 1469 first edition sold in the Wardington sale (Sotheby's, Oct. 10, 2006, lot 492), where is realized £254,400. Goff S-794; BMC V 161; Proctor 4042; Hain-Copinger 15087; Hawkins 232; Howgego S178; Stillwell, Awakening Interest in Science VI:893 (1469 ed).