Ἱστορίων βίβλια ε. … Historiarum libri quinque — Hagenau 1530

[SOLD] Πολύβιου Μεγαλοπολίτου Ἱστορίων βίβλια ε. Polybii Historiarum libri quinque; opera Vincentii Obsopœi in lucem editi. Idem Latini Nicolao Peroto […] interprete. — Hagenoæ, per Iohannem Secerium Anoo M.D.XXX. Mense Martio [Hagenau, Setzer, March 1530].

Editio princeps

Folio (276 x 190 mm). A few deckle edges. A⁴ B-S⁶ T⁴; A-Z⁶ Aa⁴ : (4), 106; CXLII leaves. Contents slightly toned. Ownership-entry on title cut out and repaired (see photo). First six quires with water-margin to lower corner; water-margin to the upper blank margins. 3 small wormholes up to leaf 11, 2 to leaf 70, 1 to leaf 106 and xxxiii, and 1 or 2 in the rest of the Latin text.

Provenance: Faint stamp on title: Bibliot. du Chapitre Metrop. de Paris, and ms entry Ex bibliotheca S. Crucis Parisiensis 1624. At the very upper margin of the title-page the ms. entry M. Hoperi. This may be – perhaps wishful thinking – the ownership-entry of Marcus Hopper, professor of Greek at Basel University, author of a Latin-Greek dictionnary, and editor of a few Greek authors. His usually signed as Hopper, but, as a copy of his dictionary gifted to Amerbach shows, also Hoper. Mrs. Studer/Univ. Libr. Basel kindly gave me this information; the signature of this presentation copy of the University Library Basel is UBH DC IV 4. A few contemporary marginal annotations in two or three early hands in the Latin part.

Binding: Contemporary blindstamped calf over two third of the wooden boards: triple filets building a pattern of lozenges, filled by three different stamps; a thin vertical brass strip fixing the leather on both wooden boards. Two clasps; sympathetically rebacked.

Obsopoeus (?-1539) published two more important first editions of Greek authors: the Heliodorus in 1534, produced by Herwagen in Basel, and the Diodorus Siculus, also Basel, Oporinus/Winter, 1539. In 1524 O. went to Nürnberg, where he belonged to Pirckheimer’s circle, in 1528 he became rector of the Latin school in Ansbach near Nürnberg.

The source of the editio princeps is the manuscript Monacensis Gr. 157 (Bayerische Staatsbibl.). After 1453 it came from Constantinople and passed to the library of the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus. When his library was sold the manuscript came into the hands of Joachim Camerarius, who gave it as present to Albrecht V of Bavaria. In Nürnberg Jacobus Ottonis Aetzelius has copied the manuscript in the Camerarius library around the second half of the 1520s, and has sent this copy to Obsopoeus. The editio princeps is said to be „a remarkable accurate copy“ of the manuscript (J. M. Moore, The manuscript tradition of Polybius. Cambr. 1965, p. 35). Since the manuscript contains Herodian and Heliodorus as well it makes sense to see it also as source of the editio princeps of the latter.  – Hoffmann III 268; Adams P-1801.