Τραγῳδίαι … — Frankfurt 1544

Τραγῳδίαι ἑπτὰ μετὰ σχολίων παλαιῶν καὶ πάνυ ὠφελίμων. Tragoediae septem, cum interpretationibus vetustis & valde utilibus […] — Frankfurt, Peter Braubach, 1544.

4to (223 x 155 mm). *² a-z⁸ &¹⁰: (2), 193, (1) leaves. Contemporary blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, spine in black. 

Binding: Bound by Conrad Neidel / Wittenberg (Haebler I 307f.); the role showing Erasmus and others has the signature CN. On the upper cover the initials PHV, dated 1554.

Provenance: 

Manuscript ownership-entry on upper paste-down: Paulus Hessus Vratislaviensis Anno 1554 i. Julij Viteberga. This is the latinized name of Paul Hesse (1536-1603, appears also as Heß and Hess) from Breslau. His initials PHV on the upper cover.

Paulus Hessius has been matriculated to Rostock University in April 1553 but very soon also to Wittenberg University on 10 May 1553, see Album Academiae Vitebergensis (1841, p. 281). In Wittenberg he lived in the house of Philipp Melanchthon. In 1556-1558 he took an educational tour to Italy, studied at Padua; back in 1560 he finished his study in Leipzig. In 1561 he is again in Padua, but changed to Bologna where he was graduated as a doctor of medicine. Back in Breslau he started travelling to French and Dutch universities, but also to Lübeck, Königsberg, Danzig, Stettin and Rostock. 

In 1562 Hesse published a Defensio XX Problematum Guilandini, a defence of his friend the botanist Melchior Wieland (Guilandinus) against Pietro Andrea Mattioli. Some say that this was written by Wieland himself.

There is a remarkable number of letters written by Hesse to the botanist and physician Joachim II. Camerarius

A few notes and underlinings in Antigone, Oedipus at Colonus, and Philoctetes. 

A second ownership-entry on title and fly-leaf: Förster 1843.

First of four Braubach editions. – VD 16, S 7033; Adams S 1443; Hoffmann III², 412.