[FABULAE].
Fabulae variorum auctorum nempè Aesopi Fabulae Graeco-Latinae CCXCVII. Phthonii Soph. Fabulae Gr. Lat. XL. Gabriae Fab. Gr. Lat. XLIII. Babriae Fab. Gr. Lat. XI. accedunt anonymi veteris Fabulae, Latino carmine reditae LX. ex exsoletis editionibus & codices ms. luci redditae. Haec omnia ex Bibliotheca Palatina. Adjiciuntur insuper Phaedri Fabulae XC. Avieni Fabulae XLII. Abstemii Fabulae CXCVIIII. Opera & studio Isaaci Nicolai Neveleti cum notis ... Cum figuris ligneis.
Frankfurt, Christian Gerlach & Simon Beckenstein, 1660. 8vo. With 237 woodcuts (ca. 5 x 7 cm), mostly after the series by Virgil Solis and Bernard Salomon, some signed VC (many repeats; some a bit worn), woodcut initials and tailpieces, and headpieces built up from typographic ornaments. With the Greek and Latin texts mostly in parallel columns. Contemporary(?) blind-tooled calf, each board with a frame of double fillets and a vertical double fillet 3.5 cm from the hinge dividing it into 2 fields, with a small floral ornament in the corners of each field (so 8 on each board). Rebacked in the 19th century on 3 recessed cords, with "AESOPI|FABULAE" in gold on the flat spine. [16], 678 pp.
€ 1,250
The 1660 second issue (with new preliminaries) of the first and only edition of an important and remarkably complete collection of humanistic and 16th-century compilations of fables, first published in 1610 with the title Mythologia Aesopica (Bodemann 60.1), printed at Frankfurt by Nikolaus Hoffmann for Jonas Rosa. The Greek fables appear both in the original Greek and in Latin translation, those on pp. 1-353 set in two columns with the Greek text in the inner columns and the Latin translation in the outer columns. The shorter fables that follow in Greek verse on pp. 354-387 are set in a single column with the Latin translation below the Greek. The remaining fables, on pp. 388-618, are in the original Latin. After Aesops fables Nevelet adds 47 fables "nunquam hactenus editae" (pp. 212-321), meaning published for the first time in 1610.
The 782 fables included in the compilation are illustrated with 237 woodcuts after the well-known Virgil Solis series. Little is known of the editor Isaac Nicolaus Nevelet, born in Switzerland in 1590, but his extended and scholarly commentaries (pp. 619-678) testify to his ability and his determination to make the collection as complete as possible, collecting and publishing every fable he could find, especially remarkable since he is said to have been only about twenty when he published them.
With the bookplate of Victor A. Lord (1924-1987) on the front paste-down. Pp. 388-452 of the Phaedrus fables extensively annotated by a scholarly 17th-century hand. Some browning throughout; wormholes in pp. 394-419, corners bumped, hinges cracked and spine damaged. Bodemann, 60.2; Fabula docet 38; VD17, 23:284808K (9 copies incl. 1 incomplete).
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