Author: [Claudian] Claudianus, Claudius: (Burman, Pieter II; Heinsius, Niklaas, eds.:)
Title: Opera, quae exstant, omnia ad membranarum veterum fidem castigata [...]
Description: Amstelaedami [Amsterdam], ex officina Schouteniana, 1760. First edition thus. 4to, pp. [xiv], xxxii, [ii], 31, [v], 600, (without loss) 609-1112 (mispaginated as usual). Large paper copy, with some leaves deckled at bottom edge. Title in red and black with woodcut device, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials. Occasional very light foxing, some leaves with a faint line of toning across head margin and a few others unopened at head, short closed tear (seemingly the result of a paper flaw) to leaf 5R2 affecting text but not legibility. Late 18th- or early 19th-century crimson straight-grain morocco, gilt title to spine, a.e.g., ornate dentelles, green leather joints, marbled endpapers, pale blue ribbon bookmark bound in. Spine a little faded and rubbed, a few light marks, endcaps and bottom edges beginning to wear, a very good copy handsomely bound. Small gilt oval crest of Archibald Acheson, 3rd Earl of Gosford (1806-1864) to front paste-down. Round Jesuit Society inkstamp (Milltown Park, Dublin) to title-page. First edition of Pieter Burman's (1714-1778) edition of Claudian, with commentary by his uncle, Pieter Burman I, and previously unprinted notes by the neo-latin poet and classical verse scholar Niklaas Heinsius (1620-1681). Claudian of Alexandria (b. c. AD 360) was court poet under the emperor Honorius and his minister Stilicho. "In diction and technique he is the equal of Lucan and Statius, in hyperbole he perhaps outdoes them" (OCD). His poetry is also a valuable historical source. Dibdin writes that this is 'unquestionably a very superior edition, and it contains a greater fund of critical illustration than the preceding by Gesner.' Dibdin I (4th edn.) 472

Keywords: Early Printing (to c.1800, all subjects);Classics & Antiquity


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