A Contrasting Classical Trio
SOPHOCLES.
Tragoediae Sophoclis quotquot extant carmine Latino redditae Georgio Ratallero … interprete. Antwerp, Jean Bellère, 1584.
[bound with:]
LUCAN. Pharsalia, sive, de bello civili Caesaris et Pompeii libri X. Adiectis ad marginem notis T. Farnabii, quae loca obscuriora illustrent. Frankfurt, Paul Jacobi for Johann Stöckle, 1624.
[and:]
JUVENAL and PERSIUS. Satyrae: cum annotationibus ad marginem, quae obscurissima quaeque dilucidare possint. Quarta editio prioribus multo emendatior & auctior. Frankfurt, Johann Stöckle, 1623 [– Hanau, Peter Antonius (for Johann Stöckle), 1623].
Three works in one volume, 8vo, Sophocles: pp. [xxxii], 486, [5], [5 (blank)], woodcut Bellère device to title, woodcut initials; Lucan: pp. [xvi], 343, [1 (blank)], woodcut Stöckle device to title, woodcut initials, woodcut and typographic headpieces; Juvenal: pp. [viii], 180, [4], 40, with part-title, woodcut Stöckle devices to title and part-title, woodcut initials, woodcut and typographic headpieces; very light foxing with occasional slight marks, but very good copies; bound in early seventeenth-century German vellum, spine lettered in ink, yapp fore-edges with a number or letters written across them (‘15’ or ‘IS’?), edges stained blue; a little soiled; ink ownership inscriptions to title of Johann Heinrich Fischer, dated 10 April 1629, and of Bernhard Illing, dated 1651, nineteenth-century inscription to inside front cover by J. G. L. Gericke.
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Tragoediae Sophoclis quotquot extant carmine Latino redditae Georgio Ratallero … interprete.
An early seventeenth-century sammelband collecting contrasting classical texts: the tragedies of Sophocles, the civil war horrors of Lucan, and the sharp satires of Juvenal and Persius.
The plays of Sophocles were translated into Latin verse in 1570 by Georgius Ratallerus (1528–1581), a lawyer in Utrecht, who also translated Euripides and Hesiod.
The accompanying editions of Lucan and Juvenal were prepared by the English classicist and schoolmaster Thomas Farnaby (c. 1575–1647), a prolific translator, and dedicated to Francis Stuart and Henry, Prince of Wales. Farnaby’s edition of Juvenal and Persius first appeared in 1612 (shortly before the death of the second dedicatee at the age of eighteen), devised ‘in a manner intended to render their works intelligible to schoolboys’ (ODNB). The success of this and his other classical texts resulted in numerous editions both at home and abroad, though the overseas editions (cheaper than the London ones) affected Farnaby’s income, and in 1632 (long after the printing of the present editions) he obtained from Charles I a prohibition on the import of foreign printings.
Sophocles: USTC 406681; Pettegree & Walsby, Netherlandish Books 28173. Lucan: VD17 1:043357L. Juvenal: VD17 23:270046F; USTC 2526470.