JUSTINUS [with] GELLIUS, Aulus

£14,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

A very clean and wide-margined copy of two Venetian incunables in a strictly contemporary and very attractive Renaissance binding. The second work notably features a fine instance of the kind of large Greek type used in the 1480s, illustrated by Proctor, who praised it for 'the regularity and size which make it the best type of its class' (p.127). Justinus was a second century Roman historian. This, his most notable work, he describes as a collection of the most interesting and important passages from Pompeius Trogus' 'Historiae philippicae et totius mundi origina et terrae situs', written in the time of Augustus and now lost. This was a general history of those parts of the world that had come under the auspices of Alexander the Great, and takes as its main theme the Macedonian Empire founded by his father Philip. The last event it records (in Justinius' version) is in 20 B.C. Through his frequent digressions, Justinus here produces not an epitome but rather a useful and sometimes elegant anthology based on the work. It was very popular in the Middle Ages, when the author was frequently confused with Justin Martyr. The Noctes Atticae consists of a miscellaneous anthology on various topics, including philosophy, law, literature, grammar, and history. Gellius (c. 125 - c. 180) wrote the book for the education of his children during his winter nights in Attica, and the work proved very popular into and throughout the Middle Ages. It grew out of a commonplace book that Gellius k

• Binding: Hardcover

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