POCKET-SIZED PLAYS PAINSTAKINGLY POSTILLATED
TERENTIUS Afer, Publius.
Comoediae sex. Ex recensione Heinsiana, cum annotationibus Thomae Farnabii in quatuor priores et M.C.Is.F. in duas posteriores.
Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1658.
12mo, pp. [xlvi], ‘284’ [recte 302], [8]; with copper-engraved title to *1, woodcut printer’s device to title and woodcut portrait medallion to verso, woodcut initials and ornaments; a few light stains, some toning, but a very good copy; bound in contemporary mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments with later manuscript label, marbled pastedowns; endcaps chipped, corners bumped, somewhat rubbed; with copious carefully numbered annotations in a single contemporary hand.
Added to your basket:
Comoediae sex. Ex recensione Heinsiana, cum annotationibus Thomae Farnabii in quatuor priores et M.C.Is.F. in duas posteriores.
An intensely annotated copy of this rare pocket Jansson edition of Terence’s comedies. The edition itself was a successful production, uniting the text edited by Heinsius with the commentary of Thomas Farnaby to the first four comedies, and that of Méric Casaubon to the last two. Jansson had been publishing Terence since 1640.
Terence’s popularity had been uninterrupted through the centuries, and sanctioned amongst Renaissance humanists by Erasmus and Melanchthon, as well as by Martin Luther, who recommended his works as part of the educational curriculum. The Dutch humanist editor of our edition, Daniël Heinsius (1580–1655), whose essays on the merits of the two Roman comics Terence and Plautus headed his many editions of both, captured the general preference for Terence by likening his comedies to Menander’s, and Plautus’ to the work of the irreverent irresponsible Aristophanes, guilty of having attacked even Socrates. Among dramatists, Terence becomes a more frequent model for comedy in the Restoration and eighteenth century.
This copy was evidently used by a keen scholar, whose attention extends to all the plays, and includes as much context as could possibly be fitted within the unforgiving confines on a duodecimo volume. The choice of annotating a pocket edition points to a recreational, rather than didactic, purpose: a more personal, content-driven rather than philological, editorial or didactic approach, enabled by the very popular commentary, in the form of Latin footnotes with parallels for expressions, etymologies and context, by the English schoolmaster and scholar Thomas Farnaby.
Library Hub records a single copy in the UK, at Christ Church, Oxford.
STCN 205446736, USTC 1839759.
