AUSONIUS, Decimus Magnus.

Opera Ausonii Nuper Reperta.

      [Colophon:] Parma: Angelus Ugoletus, 10 July 1499. - small 4to. ff. [8], lxxviii. printer’s device at end. roman letter & some Greek. 35 lines. initial spaces with guide letters. 19th century blind-paneled calf (rubbed, joints cracked, spine label wanting, page numbers sometimes cut off or shaved, some light foxing & occasional soiling). the E.Gordon Duff-Carl Purington Rollins-Daniel Berkeley Updike copy, with ownership entries of Duff & Updike and bookplates of Updike and Rollins. Fourth and last incunable edition, the most complete, with additions by Franciscus Paxius and Antonius Securanus and edited by Thaddeus Ugoletus. Ausonius, Roman poet and rhetorician, was born in Bordeaux in Gaul around 309 A.D. He enjoyed a brilliant thirty-year career as a teacher of rhetoric before being appointed tutor to Gratian, son of Emperor Valentinian, who upon his accession rewarded Ausonius with numerous titles and honours culminating in a consulship in 379. Following the murder of Gratian, Ausonius retired to his estate in Bordeaux. His most famous work is a poem in 483 hexameters on the Moselle, describing life and scenery along the river between Bingen and Trier (Trèves), which includes passages relating to the region’s wines and vineyards. Some of Ausonius’s other writings contain references grape-growing and wine-making in the now famous wine country around his native Bordeaux. The French wine, Château Ausone takes its name from the poet. This is the only incunable edition to contain the Moselle poem in addition to several other works including Ludus septem sapientum. "This book, as containing the entire works of Ausonius, should be always found in a well-furnished classical library." (Dibdin) Proctor lists only 37 incunables from 10 presses in Parma, the majority printed by Ugoletus (11; the BMC lists 12). This copy was formerly in the collections of E.Gordon Duff, bibliographer and librarian at the John Ryland Library in Manchester in the late 19th century, a scholar of 15th and 16th century printing and bookbinding; Carl Purington Rollins, typographer at Yale University Press; and American printer and historian of typography, Daniel Berkeley Updike, founder of Merrymount Press. There is a 1-page tipped-in typed note from a Mr. Keogh at Yale University Library, April 11, 1936, reporting to Mr. Rollins on Ausonius’s book in general and this copy in particular.BMC VII 946. Goff A-1404. Hain-Copinger 2181. GW 3094. IGI 1101. Pellechet 1649. Proctor 6873. Dibdin (4th Edn.) I p. 345. Moss I pp. 213-14. cfOberlé 12-16.