[ORPHIC POEMS.]
Ορφεως αργοναυτικα υμνοι και περι λιθων. Orphei Argonautica hymni et de lapidibus curante Andrea Christiano Eschenbachio Noribergense cum ejusdem ad Argonautica notis & emendationibus. Accedunt Henrici Stephani in omnia & Josephi Scaligeri in hymnos notae.
Utrecht, Willem van de Water, 1689.
8vo, pp. 28, 329, [7], with an additional engraved title-page; Greek and Latin printed on facing pages; a very good copy in contemporary mottled calf, covers with floral cornerpiece in blind, speckled edges, spine rubbed, label and headcap chipped; booklabel of John Waynflete Carter.
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Ορφεως αργοναυτικα υμνοι και περι λιθων. Orphei Argonautica hymni et de lapidibus curante Andrea Christiano Eschenbachio Noribergense cum ejusdem ad Argonautica notis & emendationibus. Accedunt Henrici Stephani in omnia & Josephi Scaligeri in hymnos notae.
First Eschenbach edition, presenting the ‘Argonautica Orphica’, an anonymous fourth-century Greek epic probably based on the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, which had been rediscovered in the fifteenth century by Constantine Lascaris, alongside the Orphic Hymns and the Lithica, describing the properties of gemstones.
The Nuremberg-born Eschenbach (1663–1722) had lectured at Jena in 1687, then spent a period immersed in the libraries at Wittenberg, Helmstädt, and Wolfenbüttel, and in Holland, where he edited the present work. He later returned to the Orphic poems with a critical study in 1702 (see ADB).
Provenance: The seminal bibliographer, collector and bookseller John Carter (1905–1975), best known for his ABC for Book Collectors and the exhibition Printing in the Mind of Man, had studied Classics at Cambridge; his library was sold at Sotheby’s in 1976.
STCN 840517734.
