MINIATURE MARTIAL (AND MAROT)
MARTIAL.
Epigrammaton libri XIII. Ex fide vetustissimorum exemplarium, quanta fieri potuit cura vigilantiaque emendati.
Paris, Jean Libert, 1612 [(colophon:) 1613].
16mo, pp. 398; small typographic ornament to title-page, typographic head- and tailpieces and decorative initials, larger woodcut initials; a few tiny wormholes to inner margin of final leaves, light dampstaining in last few leaves, cut a little close, a fine copy; bound in near-contemporary red morocco, composite gilt frame, flat spine gilt in compartments with a small lozenge tool and lettered directly in gilt in second compartment, edges gilt, blue marbled endpapers; extremities very slightly rubbed; a few early annotations to the text (see below), inscription to title-page ‘ex libris Iacobi Morice’ (i.e. Jacques Maurice?) dated 1687, later inscription of R. Champion to head of title-page, erased inscription to verso of title dated 1821.
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Epigrammaton libri XIII. Ex fide vetustissimorum exemplarium, quanta fieri potuit cura vigilantiaque emendati.
An uncommon small-format edition of Martial’s Epigrams, with early annotations marking passages used by the humanist poet Marot.
An early owner of this volume has noted the word ‘Marot’ around sixteen times in the margins, referring to the use of some epigrams by the poet Clément Marot (1496–1544) for his Epigrammes faictz à l’imitation de Martial. There are about five instances of earlier annotations of just a few words each, and a few marks in the margins to indicate specific passages.
The printer, Jean Libert (d. 1646), had married the daughter of the printer Guillaume Prevosteau and built up a substantial printing and publishing business, perhaps also acquiring the stock of Guillaume Morel. His business was located next to the Collège royal and his main productions were schoolbooks and classical texts, as here. The present edition contains no information about the editor or any apparatus to inform the student, beyond the letter from Pliny the Younger to Cornelius Priscus on the death of Martial, which is used as a preface:
‘Aeterna, quae scripsit, non erunt fortasse: ille tamen scripsit, tanquam futura’
[He wrote things to be eternal, perhaps they won’t be; however he wrote as if they would].
Uncommon, with only two copies found outside France, at Lambeth Palace and at the Biblioteca Nacional de México; no copies traced in the US.
USTC 6010500.
