Alexandri Magni regis Macedonum vita.   Strasbourg: Reinhard Beck, 1513.

£10,000 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A fascinating, early 16th-century collection of rare editions of largely literary and secular texts, including the 12th-century epic on Alexander the Great, the Alexandreis by Walter of Châtillon, illustrated with an early chiaroscuro title-border by Hans Wechtlin. No doubt originally collected together and bound for a humanist scholar, who wrote ‘Lepidissima hystoria’ [‘a most witty story/history’] on the title of the Alexandreis, in 1789 the sammelband was bought by the noted German antiquary and bibliophile Joseph von Lassberg. At this time he was completing his studies at Strasbourg and Freiburg before entering into the life-long service of the Fürstenberg family; he sold his library of over 12,000 books and manuscripts to the Court Library at Donaueschingen shortly before his death. The first edition of the Alexandreis (Rouen c. 1487-90, ISTC ig00048300) is extremely rare and known in only eight copies; this second edition is also very rare with VD16 recording only eight copies while OCLC records only four copies in US libraries. Walter of Châtillon’s poem drew principally on the biography of Curtius Rufus and influenced subsequent Alexander romances of Ulrich von Eschenbach and Rudolf von Ems, it was also referenced by Chaucer in the Wife of Bath . ‘One of the high achievements of twelfth-century literature. … In artistry and intelligence it loses nothing by comparison to the first flowerings of European vernacular literature’ (Townsend, The Alexandreis 1996). “The triu

• Year: 1513

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