THE KLOSS-BUCKLEY-VERTUE COPY
CLAUDIANUS, Claudius; Thaddaeus UGOLETUS, editor.
Opera.
Venice, Johannes Tacuinus, de Tridino, 6 June 1495.
4to, ff. [128]; a–q8; roman letter, woodcut initials, woodcut printer’s device to final verso; occasional light marginal dampstaining, small marginal wormholes (some repaired) to foot of first ten leaves, to quires c–d, and to upper corner of quires p–q, last two leaves with small wormhole in text, final leaf soiled, but a good, wide-margined copy with numerous deckle edges; bound in early nineteenth-century German half calf over marbled boards; binding rubbed, most of spine detached, joints weak, small paper label to foot of upper cover; early inscription ‘Venet. 1495’ to head of title-page, ?eighteenth-century Latin motto inscribed around printer’s device and ink scribbles to margins of d8v–e1r, nineteenth-century bibliographical notes in English to flyleaf, bookplates of Dr Georg Kloss and Bishop John Vertue to inside front cover, pencil inscription of W.E. Buckley on Kloss’s bookplate (see below), pencil note of price 15s to inside front cover.
A collection of late Roman poetry composed at the court of the Emperor Honorius, with notable provenance.
The first collected edition of Claudian was printed in Vicenza in 1482, though a few individual works had appeared in print before then. The present Venice edition is a reprint of the 1493 Parma edition, which contained the first printing of the Carmina minora, prepared by Taddeo Ugoleto, a humanist scholar who had been librarian to Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (whom he mentions in his preface).
Claudian (late fourth–early fifth century) was a court poet whose works sought to flatter and promote his patron, the general Stilicho (d. 408), the power behind the throne of the Emperor Honorius. Although a native Greek, most of Claudian’s work is in Latin, the language of the court. His verses range from standard panegyrics and political subjects to epic poetry (De raptu Proserpinae was the first substantial Latin epic produced in several hundred years), an Epithalamium for the wedding of Stilicho’s daughter to the Emperor, and a poem in praise of Stilicho’s wife Serena. His output provides us with substantial information about the workings of the court and its protagonists.
Provenance:
1. Dr Georg Kloss (1787–1854), of Frankfurt, with his bookplate and Panzer reference written on the inside front cover (as usual). He was the owner of a substantial collection of incunabula, sold at Sotheby’s, 7 May 1835 (this volume lot 1097).
2. William Edward Buckley (1818–1892), with his pencilled ownership inscription, vice-president of the Roxburghe Club, sales, Sotheby’s, 27 February 1893 and 16 April 1894 (this book not found in either catalogue).
3. Bishop John Vertue (1826–1900), first bishop of Portsmouth, with his bookplate to inside front cover.
HC 5372; BMC V 529; GW 7061; Goff C703; Bod-inc C-354; ISTC ic00703000.
