Juvenal, Decimus Junius, editor, Giorgio Valla

Satyrae

      Venice: Antonius de Strata, de Cremona, 8 November 1486. Folio, 12.1 x 8.5 inches. First edition with the commentary of George Valla. a-b8, c6, d8, e6, f8, g6, h8, i6, k-m8. (87 of 88 leaves. Lacking the initial blank, a1. The final blank is present in this copy.) This copy is rublcated in red and blue throughout. The first leaf of the text is stained, the bottom corner replaced. However, the rest of the contents are in good condition. The text is printed in a beautiful roman type, with beautiful added initials and paragraph marks in red and blue throughout. Notes in a fine contemporary hand appear in the margins of VallaOs dedication and preface. At the top of the title is a dated inscription, from the seventeenth century, the first word is illegible, to me at least. I can make out Ohaeredibus Melchioris Vohleas [or Vokleas],O followed by the date, 1651. I can find no information about Melchior or his heirs. It is bound in a quarter vellum binding. . This is the first edition of Juvenal printed with the commentary of Giorgio Valla. Valla was a cousin of the more famous doctor of civil and canon law, Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457). OGiorgio Valla studied Greek at Milan under Constantinus Lascaris in the early 1460Os, and later medicine at Pavia under Giovanni Marliani. He then taught humanities at Pavia, Genoa, and Milan. Valla was a friend of the printer Aldo Manuzio and played a prominent role in the editing and diffusion of Greek and Latin manuscripts, particularly in the areas of mathematics, medicine, and natural philosophy. He wrote commentaries on Cicero, Ptolemy, Juvenal, Pliny the Elder, and translated into Latin works of Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, Euclid, and many others. Valla was also renowned for his extensive library of Greek and Latin manuscripts, which was purchased after his death by Albert Pio, prince of Carpi, and is today found almost intact at the Biblioteca Estense at Modena.O (Contemporaries of Erasmus) #11;