Praefatio in libris rerum gestarum Alexandri regis [translated by Bartolomeo Facio]. Pesaro: Girolamo Soncino, 9 June 1508

FINE SONCINO IMPRINT

Folio. [100ff (last blank). Modern brown blind-tooled morocco, title lettered in gilt on spine.

First edition of Fazio's Latin translation of Arrian's account of the Asiatic expedition of Alexander the Great. A translation by Carlo Valgulio in an undated Venice edition of c. 1503 preceded this one but the Greek text did not appear until 1535.

 

Arrian’s second-century Anabasis narrates in seven books Alexander’s military campaigns; added here is an eighth book consisting of Arrian’s Indike, describing India and relating the voyage of Alexander’s friend, Nearchus, in the Persian Gulf. The translator Bartolommeo Fazio (d. 1457), was one of the early Italian Renaissance Hellenists, a contemporary of Lorenzo Valla, with whom he engaged in bitter quarrels over points of Latin style. Fazio was historiographer to King Alfonso of Naples, to whom he dedicates this work.

 

Edit 16 records this work with two title-pages, one as here, and the other more commonly found with the wording De rebus gestis Alexandri regis... (Edit16 3115). Our variant is recorded in only one copy by Edit16, indicating perhaps that this title was incorrectly printed and then quickly amended. 

 

Printer Girolamo Soncino (italianized form of Gershom ben Mosheh Soncino), was part of a family of Jewish printers who took their surname from the town of Soncino, where they settled. Printing from there starting in 1488, but due to religious persecution Girolamo moved from town to town establishing nine presses before moving to Thessaloniki and then Constantinople, where he died in 1534. In his preface, the editor, Sigismundus Golphus praise Soncino, saying that he is “second to none in printing Hebrew and Chaldaic, and quite experienced in printing Latin.” 

 

A wide-margined copy, last few leaves a little stained.

 

Edit16 80935 (one copy only, in Milan). Manzoni, Annali tipografici dei Soncino 33. Hoffman I, 379. Adams A2011.

Stock Code: 251173