Pomponivs Mela. Ivlivs Solinvs. Itinerarivm Antonini Avg. Vibivs Seqvester. P. Victor de regionibus urbis Romæ. Dionysius Afer de Situ orbis Prisciano interprete
Venice: in aedibus Aldi, et Andreae Soceri (heirs of Aldus Manutius the Elder and Andrea Torresano the Elder); October 1518. First Aldine edition.
Octavo (6” x 3 13/16”, 152mm x 97mm): a-q8 (q8 blank) r-z8 A-F8 G4 (G3 blank) [$4 signed; –a1; f3 as “e3”]. 236 leaves, foll. 1 (title, blank) 2-233 [3] (register & colophon, 4 blanks, printer’s device).
Bound in contemporary Venetian paneled calf with two pairs of silk ties. With four knotted “Greek style” tools in the center panel. On the spine, three raised bands. Ink manuscript to the fore-edge of the text-block: “POMP. MELA. ET SOLINVS.”
Small losses along the lower edge, with scuffs and the odd spot of soiling. The corners bumped and the ties perished. The text-block remarkably fresh, with occasional sidelining in ink. A reference in ink manuscript to Pliny in the margin of fol. 119r. Collated complete (including both the q8 and G3 blanks) against the register and UCLA. Ex-libris of Emilio Pittaluga to the title-page, completed in ink manuscript “ottimo esemplare.” Bookplate of T. Kimball Brooker laid in.
Pomponius Mela (d. AD 45) and Caius (Gaius) Julius Solinus (fl. ca. AD 225) together were the twin stars of Roman (i.e., Latin) ancient geography through the medieval period, and far more influential than Ptolemy, whose Geographical Guidance (Γεωγραφικὴ Ὑφήγησις) was largely inaccessible to Continental scholars before it was translated into Latin in 1406. Mela was born hard by the Strait of Gibraltar; it is no accident that as a resident of the end of the known world, he was the first Roman geographer whose work survives as the present De situ orbis. A frequent source of Pliny (whose Historia naturalis has geographical components but belongs properly to a different genre), Mela bridges the gap between the Greek geographers (Eratosthenes, Ptolemy) and his successors; his knowledge of the expanding Roman Empire in western and northern Europe surpasses that of his predecessors. Solinus wrote his De mirabilibus mundi (On the wonders of the world) — also called the Polyhistor (Πολυΐστωρ; “very learned”), as here — in the first half of the third century of the current era. Although it draws on the work of Pliny and Mela, it sets its observations on customs and peoples in a firmer chorographical-cartographical framework.
The works of Mela and Solinus fill a little more than half the volume (through fol. 127). Four shorter works follow, making the volume a useful collection of geographical works. The first is the Itinerarium — itinerary — carried out under Emperor Antoninus Pius (AD 86–161), which lists in order the places along a road as they stretched across the Roman Empire, which Antoninus expanded up into Scotland (the Antonine Wall is far further north than Hadrian’s). Lacking surviving ancient maps, these lists of stops along the road are vital for scholars of the empire in reconstructing inscriptions, coinage and a great deal more. Vibius Sequester (ca. AD 400) provides a literary parallel; conventionally titled De fluminibus, fontibus, lacubus, nemoribus, paludibus, montibus, gentibus per litteras (fol. 191ff.) it gathers the place-names (rivers, springs, lakes, forests, marshes, mountains, peoples) mentioned in Classical literature — particularly Vergil and Ovid. Publius Victor is a confected Classical author, made to provide authorship for a XVc (first published 1505) treatise De regionibus urbis Romae liber (fol. 201ff.), which describes the neighborhoods (regiones) of ancient Rome. The volume finishes with the poem of Dionysius Periegetes (sometimes called, as here, Dionysius Afer — born as he was in Libya in perhaps the AD IIc), a member of the “Second Sophistic,” composed in Greek as Οἰκουμένης Περιήγησις and translated by Priscian into Latin as De orbis situ (fol. 215ff.). Celebrated in the Renaissance (and, in the past several decades by modern scholars) as a superb stylist, Dionysius weaves the world of high literature with the genre of the Periegesis or “leading around” — a proto-travel narrative.
These final treatises speak particularly to the lineage of the work through the press of Aldus Manutius (Aldo Manuzio, ca. 1450–1515), the great Venetian humanist-printer whom we have largely to thank for the dissemination of texts in small formats. His printer’s mark of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor has persisted into the present as a symbol of humane letters and publishing (e.g., the logo of Doubleday). Aldus sent scouts through the libraries — especially monastic libraries — of Europe to find texts hitherto uncommitted to print, or superior witnesses to the traditions of ancient texts. Fueled by the Greek diaspora from the fall of Constantinople that settled in Venice, Aldus brought the widest range of ancient texts to the scholarly public. Published after his death by his heirs and his father-in-law Andrea Torresano, the volume was edited by Aldus’ brother-in-law Gian Francesco Torresani d’Asola (Franciscus Asulanus, 1498–1557/8), the intellectual light of the press after Aldus’ death.
Of Emilio Pittaluga (Genoese, perhaps early XXc) nothing can be claimed except that his ex-libris has been found in many early XVIc books that have come to market, including many Aldines. The analysis of the binding comes courtesy of Sokol Books, in whose Spring 1999 catalogue the present volume was no. 94 (the clipped description laid in). Sokol sold the book to Thomas Kimball Brooker (Kim, b. 1939), an American industrialist with a life-long scholarly interest in books. To wit, his Harvard Business School Master’s thesis was titled Rare Books as a Hedge against Devaluation and Inflation; he went on to get an MA in Art History and a PhD, both from the University of Chicago. He is the most significant collector — certainly among the living, perhaps ever, or at the least on par with the likes of J.P. Morgan — of early printed books, with a particular focus on Aldus Manutius. His collection is being dispersed by Sotheby’s in a series of eight auctions, the Bibliotheca Brookeriana, from 2023 into 2026 (to include his the formidable reference library). The present volume was lot 245 in part II (the Aldine Collection D-M) 18 October 2024 in New York.
Adams M 1053; Edit16 46864; Renouard, Alde 83/6; UCLA 171; USTC 841939.
Item #JLR0793
Price: $8,250