Pseud. TREBELLIUS POLLIO et al.

De Imperatoribus Romanis]

      - Paris; Robert Estienne, 1544. FIRST EDITION 8vo. pp. 394 [xii]. Italic letter, woodcut printer's device to t-p. A very good, clean, well-margined copy in attractive contemporary ivory vellum. Small paper library label to spine. Scraps of medieval manuscript used as stubs. Armorial bookplate of the Earl of Macclesfield to front pastedown (unstuck). Contemporary purchase note of Boniface de Sorge to fly, his autograph to foot of t-p. Charming and unsophisticated copy of the first and only edition of these collected histories of the Roman emperors from Augustus to Maximilian, edited by the famous Venetian scholar Joannes Baptista Egnatius.The work opens with extracts from the 'Historia Augusta' a collection of lives of the Roman emperors of the second and third centuries, now predominantly considered to be a 4th century fabrication, and the work of one rather than the advertised many hands. It has been interpreted as a conscious parody of contemporary activities. Trebellius Pollio's 'Tyranni Triginta' begins c.250, providing a fanciful chronicle of 30 usurpers in the time of Gallienus and Valerian, followed by a tract on the deification of Claudius. A second 'author', Flavius Vopiscus then discusses the deification of Aurelian, before moving onto other minor emperors, Tacitus, Saturninus and Carus i.a. The rest of the text is composed of: an epitome of Sextus Aurelius Victor's lives of the emperors from Augustus to Theodosius (d. c. 395); Julius Pomponius Laetus' history from the death of Gordian to Justin; and Joannes Baptista Egnatius' 3 books on the Roman leaders from Julius Caesar to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, concluding with editorial annotations to the other works. Sorge is a river that runs through Provence and Isle de Sorge, an elegant old town on its banks. BM STC Fr. 425. Ren 61:19. Adams T917. Not in Graesse, Dibdin or Brunet. L867