Laertii Diogenis De vita et moribus philosophorum libri X : plus quàm mille in locis restituti, & emendati ex fide dignis vetustis exemplaribus Graecis, vt inde Graecum exemplum etiam possit restitui / opera Ioannis Sambuci tirnauiensis pannonij ; cum indice locupletissimo.
1566
Items
Details
Title
Laertii Diogenis De vita et moribus philosophorum libri X : plus quàm mille in locis restituti, & emendati ex fide dignis vetustis exemplaribus Graecis, vt inde Graecum exemplum etiam possit restitui / opera Ioannis Sambuci tirnauiensis pannonij ; cum indice locupletissimo.
Uniform title
Lives, teachings, and sayings of famous philosophers. Latin
Created/published
Antuerpiae : Ex officina Christophori Plantini, MDLXVI [1566]
Description
456, [16] p. ; 17 cm (8vo)
Associated name
Diogenes Laertius. author.
Traversari, Ambrogio, 1386-1439.
Zsámboki, János, 1531-1584.
Plantin, Christophe, approximately 1520-1589, printer.
Plantijnsche Drukkerij, printer.
Traversari, Ambrogio, 1386-1439.
Zsámboki, János, 1531-1584.
Plantin, Christophe, approximately 1520-1589, printer.
Plantijnsche Drukkerij, printer.
Note
Signatures: A-Z⁸ a-f⁸ g⁴.
Leaf A5 signed B5.
Includes index.
Printer's device on title page.
Colophon date 1567 reading: anno M.D. LXVII, postridie idus Februarii. [14 Feb. 1567].
Latin translation by Ambrosius Traversarius.
Errors in pagination: 128 numbered 218, 386-87 numbered 388-89, 398 numbered 308, 400 numbered 200.
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. The "FAST ACC" number is a temporary call number. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Leaf A5 signed B5.
Includes index.
Printer's device on title page.
Colophon date 1567 reading: anno M.D. LXVII, postridie idus Februarii. [14 Feb. 1567].
Latin translation by Ambrosius Traversarius.
Errors in pagination: 128 numbered 218, 386-87 numbered 388-89, 398 numbered 308, 400 numbered 200.
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. The "FAST ACC" number is a temporary call number. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Cited/described in
Ruelens, C. Annales plantiniennes, p. 56
Voet, L. The Plantin Press, v. 2, p. 811
Shaaber, M.A. 16th cent. imprints D150
Adams, H.M. Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries, D488
Hoffmann, S.F.W. Bibl. Litt. der griechen, I. p. 569
Voet, L. The Plantin Press, v. 2, p. 811
Shaaber, M.A. 16th cent. imprints D150
Adams, H.M. Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries, D488
Hoffmann, S.F.W. Bibl. Litt. der griechen, I. p. 569
Place of creation/publication
Belgium -- Antwerp.
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 271027 (quarto)
Folger-specific note
Purchase made possible by Martha Oberle in honor of W.J. Oberle and W.J. Oberle, Jr. From dealer's description: "Small square octavo (168 x 112 mm). Contemporary limp vellum, yapp edges (holes for ties, now absent), manuscript titling in head compartment of spine. Plantin’s device on title page; printed in italic types with sidenotes in Greek. Provenance: contemporary initials on title of “R.L,”, “AK” and “S:C:”; pretty engraved armorial bookplate of Colonel and Mrs Forbes Leith of Whitehaugh (John James Forbes Leith served in India with the HEIC and married Williamina Helen Stewart on 28 November 1827); the couple clearly amassed a good library as one of their books (Carew’s Poems, 1640) found its way into the Pforzheimer library (catalogue number 128). Binding lightly soiled, portion excised from preliminary blank, slight bump to lower fore-corner of a few gatherings, occasional toning. A very good copy, with the final colophon leaf [g4]. First Plantin edition and the first to be edited by the Hungarian humanist scholar, physician, philologist and historian János Zsámboky (1531-1584), under the Latinizedform of his name Joannes Sambucus. His edition is based on the translation by the 15th-century Italian monk and scholar Ambrogio Traversari (first published Rome: Georgius Lauer, 1472). Diogenes Laertius was a third century AD historian whose “Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers” was a popular text during the Renaissance, published in “numerous editions… printed throughout the sixteenth century, at least fourteen of them between 1540 and 1595, spread evenly through the period, demonstrating a continuity of interest” (Hugh Roberts, Dogs’ Tales: Representations of Ancient Cynicism in French Renaissance Texts, 2006, p. 34). In publishing his edition, Plantin was competing directly with another of the great European scholar-printers, Sebastian Gryphius, whose Lyon printing house had already issued a number of editions, including one in the same year, 1566. However, Plantin’s trump card was Zsámboky (Sambucus), a figure of international standing in intellectual circles: “apart from… school editions of classical authors, Sambucus also prepared editions of a more exclusively scholarly philological nature. His Latin version of Diogenes Laertius, for example, ‘corrected in more than a thousand places,’ is presented as a work for those who wish to publish an improved Greek version” (A. S. Q. Visser, Joannes Sambucus and the Learned Image: The Use of the Emblem in Late-Renaissance Humanism, 2005, p. 39). Just a couple of years earlier Plantin had published Sambucus’s Emblemata (1564), “one of the largest and most influential specimens of the genre at an early stage of its development” (ibid.). Sambucus was one of the great book and manuscript collectors of the 16th century, amassing a very substantial and important library, a portion of which, owing to heavy debts, he was forced to sell to the emperor Maximilan II. Diogenes Laertius’s work “in ten books, purports to give an account of the principal Greek thinkers (including in the term such men as Solon and Periander), eighty-two in number, from Thales to Epicurus. The author was an industrious, though not always accurate, compiler from the works of earlier biographers and epitomizers of philosophical doctrines. His ‘Lives’ are largely taken up with anecdotes, some good, some trivial, designed to bring out the character of the philosopher concerned. Occasionally they have historical importance by reason of the authorities whom he quotes. Some of his portraits are excellent, and there is much that is interesting (e.g. the wills of some of the philosophers) and entertaining in the work. But the chief service he rendered to posterity was the preservation of three epistles and the ‘Sovran Maxims’ of Epicurus. He also preserved the beautiful epigrams of Callimachus on Heraclitus” (Sir Paul Harvey ed., The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, 1983, p. 146). According to Plantin scholar Leon Voet, 1,500 copies were printed (see The Golden Compasses: The History of the House of Plantin-Moretus, p. 389). This edition is highly uncommon commercially: we have traced only one copy in auction records; Copac cites just seven British and Irish institutional libraries (British Library, Oxford, Cambridge, Scotland, York, National Trust, Exeter); OCLC adds some 18 locations internationally. This is an important recension and an appealing example of Plantin’s presswork, issued in a format suitable for the student’s pocket and presented here in an unsophisticated plain period binding. Adams 488." Ordered from Peter Harrington, D9293, 2019-03-12, online inventory.
Folger accession
271027