Opera... nunc vero ad exemplaria Graeca denuo summa fide diligentiaq. collata... Basle, ex officina Frobeniana (per Ambrosium et Aurelium Frobenios, fratres),

Woodcut printer's device on title and last leaf verso, fine large woodcut initials. Folio (328 x 212 mm). [10]ff. 910pp. [13]ff. (first blank). Late 16th/early 17th century limp vellum with overlapping edges, blue cloth ties intact.

A fine copy of Sigismund Gelenius' important edition of Josephus from the library at Steingaden Abbey, a revised version of his edition of 1548. It begins with Gelenius' dedication to the Augsburg patrician and bibliophile Johann Jacob Fugger (1516-75), Count of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn, dated 1548. There follows a short life of Josephus, and the twenty books of De antiquitates Judaeorum which covers the history of the Jews from the creation to the outbreak of the war with Rome, followed by the eight books of the De bello Judaico, the history of the Jewish rebellion of 67-73 A.D., and the two books of De antiquitatibus contra Appionem, a defence against current misinterpretations of the Jews. The final part De Machabaeis, is an account of the martyrdom of Eleazar and of seven youths and their mother in the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes; the attribution of this piece to Josephus is doubtful. The Bohemian humanist Sigismund Gelenius (c. 1498-1554) had moved to Basle in 1524, where he first lived in Erasmus' household, and spent the remainder of his life there working for the Froben press as scholar, editor, corrector and translator from the Greek. He worked on the editio princeps of Josephus published by Froben in 1544.Provenance: Premonstratensians of Steingaden, Bavaria, founded in 1147, with their inscription on title-page "In usum FF Steingadensium. Emptus A. 1649", stamped monogram "SC" on the upper cover, spine and head of title-page, and engraved armorial bookplate "Ex Bibliotheca Canonicorum Premonstratensium in Steingaden dated 1786 inside front-cover. The monastery was dissolved in 1803 during the secularisation of Bavaria. Duplicate from the Royal Library, Munich, with their pencil mark "Dpl. A 10362" on fly-leaf.VD16 J964. Adams J366. Schweiger p. 178.

Stock Code: 47147