Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 BCE). Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libri IIII. incerto auctore. Cicerone De inuentione libri II. Topica ad Trebatium, Oratoriae partitiones. Cum correctionibus (Copy)
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 BCE). Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libri IIII. incerto auctore. Cicerone De inuentione libri II. Topica ad Trebatium, Oratoriae partitiones. Cum correctionibus (Copy)
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 BCE).
Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libri IIII. incerto auctore. Cicerone De inuentione libri II. Topica ad Trebatium, Oratoriae partitiones. Cum correctionibus Pauli Manutii. Venice, Paolo Manuzio, 1559. (bound with:)
Idem. Ciceronis De oratore libri III. Orator. De claris oratoribus. Cum correctionibus Pauli Manutii. Venice, Paolo Manuzio, 1559.
The Ciceronian Paolo Manuzio
Cicero, Marcus Tullius (106-43 BCE).
Rhetoricorum ad C. Herennium libri IIII. incerto auctore. Cicerone De inuentione libri II. Topica ad Trebatium, Oratoriae partitiones. Cum correctionibus Pauli Manutii. Venice, Paolo Manuzio, 1559. (bound with:)
Idem. Ciceronis De oratore libri III. Orator. De claris oratoribus. Cum correctionibus Pauli Manutii. Venice, Paolo Manuzio, 1559.
Two works in one volume, 8° (160x108 mm). I. Collation: A-Z8. 184 leaves. Italic and roman type. Aldine woodcut device on the title-page. Blank spaces for capitals, with printed guide letters. II. Collation: A-Z8, AA-HH8. 240 [i. e. 248] leaves. Italic and roman type. Aldine woodcut device on the title-page. Blank spaces for capitals, with printed guide letters. Eighteenth-century vellum over pasteboards; inked title to the spine. Small loss to the foredge of upper cover. A good volume, slightly foxed; a few pale waterstains. In the second edition, wormhole to fols. C6 and C7, without any loss. Some marginalia in an early hand; a drawing in pencil on fol. A4v of the second edition.
Miscellany entirely dedicated to Cicero’s rhetorics, containing two editions issued in 1559 by Aldus’s son Paolo Manuzio (1512-1574), a printer who ably combined technical skill with philological accuracy. In 1558, Paolo was named official printer of the Venetian Academy, and he was likewise successful later in Rome, where he was charged with the direction of the Papal printing press in 1561.
Throughout his prolific career, Cicero was undoubtedly Paolo Manuzio’s favourite author, and the Roman statesman’s name predominates among the twenty-one editions published by the printer in 1559. Held in especially high esteem is the first edition bound in the present volume, which contains a collection of Ciceronian works previously published by the Manuzio printing press in 1554, along with, among others, the anonymous Rhetorics to Herennius, wrongly attributed to Cicero in the manuscript tradition, and presented here on the title-page as a work ‘incerto auctore’, i.e. of an ‘uncertain author’. Both 1559 editions are printed with the usual impressive textual and typographical correctness, despite Paolo Manuzio not even being in Venice that year; he was instead in Padua, where he had taken refuge to escape conviction following a rather vague legal affair concerning the fish trade in the lagoon. The printer could, however, rely on his excellent collaborators, such as Marcantonio Muret (1526-1585) and Carlo Sigonio (1520-1584).
Adams C-1684; STC Italian, p. 176 (the second edition bound); Renouard Alde 177.6; Ahmanson-Murphy 580; T. Sterza, “Paolo Manuzio editore a Venezia (1533-1561)”, Acme, 61 (2008), pp. 123-167.