MANILIUS, Marcus (fl. first century AD).

Astronomicon.

      [Verona, Paulus Fridenperger, c. 1489-1490]. 1489 Sm. 4to., 78 leaves, roman letter, capital spaces(see below), one 4-line initial supplied in red and blue, a few insignificant round wormholes in the first half of the volume; a clean, unwashed copy in English 18th century calf, gilt fillet border, spine gilt in compartments; joints skilfully renewed; with the Macclesfield bookplate. An early edition of Manilius's Astronomicon, "our oldest connected treatise on astrology, important because of its antiquity" (DSB)."The first book is devoted to astronomy, with a description of the cosmos that includes theories about its origin, the stars, the planets, the celestial circles, and the comets. The second book analyzes the characteristics of the signs of the zodiac and the possibilities of their conjunctions; the third describes the twelve athla, the locus Fortunae, and the way to determine a horoscope; the fourth analyzes the decans of the zodiacal signs (each sign consists of three units, or decans, each of ten degrees, for a total of thirty-six decans) and their influence on human characteristics; the fifth examines the extra-zodiacal signs that accompany the movement of the zodiac and the magnitudes of the stars."Although attributed by BMC to Bernardinus Venetus, de Vitalibus in Venice, c. 1498-1500, this anonymous printing has recently been attributed to the émigré German printer in Verona, Paulus Fridenperger.Dr Martin Davies writes: Daniela Fattori, 'Nuove ricerche sulla tipografia veronese del Quattrocento', La Bibliofilía, 97 (1995), 1-20 (pp. 12-13) has reattributed this quarto edition to the press of Paulus Fridenperger of Passau at Verona, for various good reasons: The type is of a common Venetian sort (111/112R), which BMC V 598 (Addenda) decided was that of Bernardinus Venetus de Vitalibus, 111R, as described at p. 546; Proctor had earlier classed it among the Venetian adespota. Fattori reckons the measurement as more exactly 112 mm. and indistinguishable from the 112R used at Verona by Fridenperger in his signed Lucretius of 1486 (BMC VII 953), though appreciably less sharp in the Manilius.She says that the watermark that appears in the Manilius is the "strange little bird with a long beak, large head, and feet in the form of an h (Briquet 12190), which is characteristic of Veronese incunables of the last fifteen years of the fifteenth century and presumably derives from a Veronese papermaker, being found almost exclusively at Verona." She says it is found in all the products of Fridenperger's Veronese press, including the Lucretius, and in another Veronese incunable of 1491 from a different printer. The small quarto tracts are extremely rare and not found in the UK, so we must take her word for it there; but B. 12190 is not found in any of the four copies of Lucretius I have looked at in the British Library.Despite the Lucretius being a folio and the Manilius a quarto, she regards the two works as being "part of the same publishing project", concerned with the publication of two ancient scientific poems. She remarks that the affinity is all the greater when the style of setting out the books of each work is considered. Both of them have résumés of the contents (capitula) of the individual books or large sections placed in telegraphic fashion at the end of each. The third point is a good one and can be reinforced by an observation she does not make, that these capitula headings have in both Lucretius and Manilius spaces left for initials at the beginning of each line, but the initials so called for are actually printed (BMC remarks on this in the Lucretius, VII 953).A last point, again not made by Fattori but not in itself of much account, is that like most of the other smaller tracts now attributed to Fridenperger at Verona, the Manilius is found in Verona today (B. Comunale) but not in any Venetian library.BMC VII, p. l stated that the 1486 Lucretius was the only signed work of Fridenperger at Verona, but another has since come to light (in Verona Comunale, the only known copy), Guarino, Regulae (GW 11657), explicitly signed by him at Verona, 28 October 1487. This too is in the 112R of the Lucretius and Manilius. After his period of printing at Verona, Fridenperger next appears as a publisher (not printer) at Venice in 1495. Against the Gesamtkatalog's belief that he continued to print at Venice, see Paul Needham, 'Venetian Printers and Publishers in the Fifteenth Century', La Bibliofilía, 100 (1999), 157-200, p. 188 (Publishers no. 30).H 10702; BMC V 598; Klebs 661.6; Goff M206.