FACTS CROSS-CHECKED
VALERIUS MAXIMUS.
Dictorum et factorum memorabilium libri novem.
[(Colophon:) Venice, Aldus Manutius, October 1502] [April 1503].
8vo, ff. [216]; woodcut printer’s device to title and colophon, text in italic throughout, capital spaces with guide letters; first and last leaves slightly duststained, occasional light marginal dampstaining, closed paperflaw without loss to I8, some minor marginal worming to last few leaves (partly repaired), else a good copy; in nineteenth-century sheep-backed boards with marbled sides, gilt-lettered green morocco spine label; some wear to joints and corners, a little worming to rear hinge; early inscription struck through on A2v, neat marginalia in a sixteenth-century hand to c. 346 pp.
First Aldine edition, variant ‘B’ with four additional leaves in quire A, with numerous early annotations.
Valerius Maximus compiled his nine books of Facta et dicta memorabilia in the early first century AD, dedicating it to the emperor Tiberius. The work comprises anecdotes and examples drawn from the Roman and Greek worlds, covering religion, omens, social customs, good and evil conduct, good fortune, military stratagems, and much besides. While unoriginal and rhetorical in style, the work proved very popular in the Middle Ages.
When first issued by Aldus Manutius in October 1502, quire A contained only eight leaves; this Aldus soon replaced with a twelve-leaf quire incorporating twenty-four additional passages found in a manuscript at Vienna, prefaced with a letter to Johannes Cuspinianus dated 1 April 1503.
The marginalia in this copy, in an elegant sixteenth-century hand, provide cross-references to other classical writers with remarkable assiduousness. They identify not only Valerius’ sources, chiefly Livy and Cicero, but also authors influenced by him, including Pliny the Elder and Plutarch. Other writers referred to in the annotations include Appian, Aulus Gellius, Cornelius Nepos, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Herodotus, Justinus, Orosius, Seneca, Suetonius, and Quintillian. A note at the foot of P1r discusses Manlius Torquatus.
EDIT 16 CNCE 36147; USTC 861752; Adams V 83; Renouard, Annales (3rd ed.), p. 36, no. 10.
