SUETONIUS.

£1,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

An excellent and beautifully bound copy of this important edition of Suetonius Lives of the twelve Caesars , printed by Robert Estienne and considered one of the principal Renaissance editions of this Latin classic. The text was edited and corrected by Estienne himself on the basis of a vetustum exemplar , an old manuscript which has been identified as the famous Codex Memmianus. Copied in Tours in the IX century, the Codex Memmianus is the oldest and best manuscript of Suetonius that survived, which may be said to form the basis of the present general text of Suetonius (Ernesti). The fine 18th century binding resembles in style the bindings made by Pierre-Paul Dubuisson (1746-1762, for the rich design of the gilt decoration in the compartments on the spine and of the endpapers) and of Luc-Antoine Boyet (active 1684-1733, for very similar fleuron on a Boyet s binding see Bibliothèque Rapha√´l Esmerian 1972 No 59, groupe 7). Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (AD 69-122) was a Roman historian and biographer. The twelve Caesars is his most important and longest work, containing the biography of Caesar, followed by the biographies of the eleven Roman emperors from Augustus to Domitian. Popular and praised in antiquity, this work remains a primary source on Roman history. Each biography begins with the ancestry, followed by early life, political career, physical appearance and private life, a pattern that influenced mediaeval biographers. As Suetonius was secretary at the imperial p

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.