A PUNCTILIOUS READER
APPIAN of Alexandria.
Civili. Appiano Alessandrino delle guerre civili de Romani tradotto da M. Alessandro Braccio secretario fiorentino ricorretto, & nuovamente con somma diligentia impresso.
Venice, [Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio for Federico Torresano, April] 1538.
[bound with:]
—. Esterne. Appiano Alessandrino delle guerre esterne de Romani tradotto da M. Alessandro Braccio secretario fiorentino, ricorretto, et nuovamente con somma diligentia impresso. Venice, [Pietro Nicolini da Sabbio for Federico Torresano, January] 1538.
Two works in one volume, 8vo, ff. 287, [1]; 191, [1]; titles within woodcut architectural borders, text printed in italics; a few tears to inner margin of the first title with small losses to the woodcut border, small wormhole to inner margin of first two quires far from text, a few very small wormtracks to inner margins of first work, occasional stains, some light toning, but a very good copy; recased in eighteenth-century Italian vellum over boards, spine lettered in ink, edges mottled red; annotated throughout in an early Italian hand with marginalia, manicules, and underlinings (some marginalia trimmed); early ownership inscriptions ‘Alex. Font. et amicorum’ and ‘Antonius Reggia’ to title, slightly later inscription to verso of last blank of the first work (‘Compare Biagio del Ocella’), old ink shelfmarks to the front pastedown, modern private collector’s red ink stamp to front free endpaper, traces of old label to front pastedown.
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Civili. Appiano Alessandrino delle guerre civili de Romani tradotto da M. Alessandro Braccio secretario fiorentino ricorretto, & nuovamente con somma diligentia impresso.
A much-annotated copy of these late Aldine Press productions, the two complementary works on the history of Rome’s wars by Appianus in the Italian translation of Alessandro Braccio (or Braccesi), which had first appeared in 1519 – the first vernacular versions.
The editio princeps of the original Greek would only appear in 1551. There is a variant issue of the first work, with Federico Torresano’s device within the title-page border. Although the second work does not give an explicit record of Torresano’s involvement, this was clearly a complement to the first (Rome’s civil wars, followed by the wars fought by Rome against external enemies) and was included by Renouard in his bibliography.
The annotations are in a contemporary Italian hand and are evidence of a mind keenly engaged both with the sequence of events in the development of Rome as an empire, and with the contemporary wrestling of historical and historiographic categories, which involved consideration of financial and economic matters alongside the more traditionally important issues of warfare and diplomacy. Our annotator, remarkably, perseveres in his reading through to the end of the volume, maintaining a ‘code’ of markings and symbols that suggest parallel reading of other sources, indicating an academic commitment rather than a leisurely endeavour.
The concentration of several different marks in the most ancient epochs of Roman history may indicate a more sophisticated reading, perhaps in the awareness that, as a consequence of the loss of the relevant books in Livy, Appian was one of the principal sources – and sometimes the only extant source – for the second and first century BC. The annotator also appears to have been aware and appreciative of Appian’s unique understanding of the social causes of the Roman civil wars. This attention was quietly central to the formation of early-modern historiographic thought contending with the potentially competitive drives of chrono-topographic accuracy and the rhetorical, moral role of history in contemporary society; such attention to social phenomena would inform, among others, Carlo Sigonio’s innovative De antiquo iure populi Romani (1560).
I: EDIT 16 CNCE 2204; Cataldi Palau 155; Renouard 116/3; II: EDIT 16 CNCE 73154; Cataldi Palau 154 (but 155 in the other issue); Renouard 116/2.
