LIVY (Titus Livius).

Titi Livii Patavini LATINAE HISTORIAE PRINCIPIS. Decas quarta [-decadis quintae libri v].

      Lugduni [Lyon]: apud Seb. Gryphium, 1542. Two parts in one volume, 8vo, 539, (18 index), (2 blank),(1 printer’s device); 230, (8 index), (1 blank), (1 printer’s device)pp. 17th-cent. vellum, yapp edges. Recent ink titles to spine, old owner entries, notes, and bookplate at ffep; entries and scribblings at final leaf and rfep; old ink smudge at title, early marginal annotations (often slightly shaved) and underlinings in first part, first quire beginning to detach. Overall a good copy with clean, crisp text, both parts complete with final leaf of printer’s vignette. ¶ First Gryphius edition, the fourth and fifth decades (Books xxxi-xlv) of Livy’s History. The complete edition of 1542 consists of six parts, the first two containing the first and third surviving decades, the final two an epitome, and a volume of annotations by Beatus Rhenanus and Sigismundus Gelenium. The two parts here offered are notable for what they reveal about editorial decisions by the foremost historian of the Augustan age: “The way in which Livy... deals with his authorities, may be best studied in his fourth and fifth decades. While he there follows the Roman annalists, Cl. Quadrigarius and Valerius Antias, in his narrative of exclusively Roman events, his authority for the relations between Rome and the Hellenic States is Polybius. He does not however copy his Greek original too closely, but apparently aims at giving his version a Roman tone and rhetorical colouring” (Sandys I, p.189). ¶ After learning the book trade in Germany and Venice, Sebastian Gryphius (1493-1556) moved to Lyon in 1520 to work as an agent for Venetian booksellers. He set up his own press in 1524 and quickly became the leading humanistic publisher in Lyon. A survey of key collective databases suggests that the present edition of Livy (not in Adams) is notably scarcer than Gryphius’ later edition of 1554. Baudrier VIII, p.173. Cf. Adams L-1341 (ed.1554). Our volume has passed through many hands as evidenced by the very early notes predating the present binding, the old entry of one William Gyles, and the bookplate of Nathan Starr of Oxford (1921). A very legible early entry on the rear endleaf may be that of Samuel Barrow (1625?–1683), an English physician and lawyer of the army.