Caesar, Julius.

Julius der erst rîmisch Keiser von seinem Leben und Krieg, erstmals uss dem Latein in TÅtsch gebracht vnd mit andrer Ordnung der Capittel und uil zusetz nÅw getruckt.

      Durch Joannem GrÅninger, vff sant Adolffs des heiligen Bischoffss 1508], [Strassburg - First translation of Julius Caesar's Commentaries into German, here in the second edition, which appeared one year after the first. The Commentaries are the translation of Matthias Ringmann, and the work has supplemental lives by Suetonius, Plutarch, and others. This handsome and SCARCE book is famous for its woodcut illustrations: It has one quarter-page, four half-page, one three-quarter page, and eleven full-page woodcuts. These include battle scenes, the assassination, camp life, etc., all of the figures being dressed anachronistically in Renaissance garb. The text is printed in large gothic in double-column format. Both the first and the second editions in German are scarce/rare. Of the first edition we find only two copies in the U.S. (Harvard and Stanford), and of the second we trace three (Brown, Duke, and Trinity College), all being incomplete except the Brown copy. Folio (31 cm; 11.5"). [148] ff., illus. Index Aurel. 128.654; Schmidt, Repertoire bibliographique Strasbourgeois, no. 91, p. 40-41; Schweiger, II, 51; not in Adams (who only lists much later editions in German); this edition apparently not in VD16 on-line. Recased in an 18th-century vellum-over-boards binding. Sophisticated copy in all likelihood, with several leaves apparently supplied from a different copy, those leaves being either slightly smaller than the others or more heavily sized. Occasional light waterstains in from a very few margins; two leaves with old scribbling in ink in margins; minor worming in lower margin of last six leaves. A very nice copy of a very scarce book that is clearly difficult to find complete, incomplete, or sophisticated. [Attributes: First Edition; Hard Cover]