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£3,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Libri de re rustica. First Estienne edition, complete with all five parts bound in one volume and rare thus. Robert Estienne was the printer to the king and is especially celebrated for the typographical elegance of his books: this is the earliest text printed entirely in italic by his press and with a type often attributed to the leading designer Claude Garamond.Robert (1503-1559), son of the famous humanist and printer Henri, was appointed "imprimeur du Roi" in 1539 and quickly established his reputation as one of the most learned men of his time, as well as the most influential figure in the Parisian book trade. His Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (1531) was a revolutionary Latin dictionary which laid the foundation of modern Latin lexicography. Until 1543, Estienne had used italic solely to distinguish specific phrases or words in pages of roman type. The present work marked a new direction; the main text is entirely printed using the "Second Estienne Pica Italic font" (see Vervliet, p. 309), a new italic type which had first appeared the previous year in his edition of Cicero's Tusculanarum Quaestionum. Several scholars have attributed this charming, Aldine-esque type to Garamond (1510-1561), a skilled engraver and type designer with whom Estienne started collaborating about 1530. This edition, composed of five parts which were issued separately, inaugurated a successful series of Latin classics printed in this manner, which continued until Estienne's departure from Paris in 1

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