Beschreibung:

SENECA, Lucius Annaeus (the younger, c. 4 B.C./1 A.D.-65 A.D.). Opera philosophica . - Epistolae , and other works. [Venice: Joannes and Gregorius de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, c. 1492]. Chancery 2° (298 x 195mm). Collation: \Kp\k 2 a 1 0 b-z 8 & \\j \\a 8 A-B 8 C 1 0 (\Kp\k1r title, \Kp\k1v-2r blank, \Kp\k2v table of contents, a1r letter of St. Jerome on the apocryphal correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul, a2r Epistolae , etc., C9v quire register, C10 blank). 236 leaves (of 238, lacking first leaf with title and with final blank leaf); a1 misbound before a10, and sheets r4.5 and t4.5 exchanged in binding, all at an early date. 60 lines and headline, Proverbs in double column, printed guide-letters, spaces for Greek. Type: 82R b. First text leaf ILLUMINATED IN GOLD AND COLOURS FOR CARDINAL GEORGES D'AMBOISE by a French artist with a full floral and foliate border on an ochre ground incorporating the arms of Georges d'Amboise as cardinal in the fore-margin and a small unidentified coat-of-arms in the lower corner, 3- to 7-line initials in liquid-gold on pink or blue ground. (Some wear to illuminated border with short tear at hinge, misbound a1 torn at hinge, presumably in an effort to remove it to its proper place, a few stains, light browning.) 18th-century panelled calf (somewhat worn, rebacked, a few minor restorations). Provenance : Cardinal Georges d'Amboise, Prime Minister and Archbishop of Rouen (1460-1510, arms); contemporary marginal annotations, occasionally correcting text, mispaginations and misbinding; various early inscriptions on first blank recto, including 'Jo. a Salicet.' and Joannis a Serlici'. A RARE SURVIVAL OF A PRINTED BOOK FROM THE LIBRARY OF GEORGES D'AMBOISE, ARCHBISHOP OF ROUEN. Appointed Cardinal and Prime Minister of Louis XII in 1498, Georges d'Amboise brought together an extensive library at his chateau at Gaillon in Normandy. His was the largest collection of Italian illuminated volumes in France in 1501, and he continued to enlarge the collection by commissioning manuscripts from both local and Parisian scribes and illuminators. Interestingly, one of his surviving commissions, dating from 1503, is a manuscript volume of the same text as the present volume, Seneca's Epistolae (Paris, BN, Lat. 8551). See Avril and Reynaud for a discussion of his manuscript commissions ( Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440-1520 , Paris: 1995, nos. 411-418). This printed edition is the fifth of Seneca's principal works. C 5347; BMC V, 596 (IB. 21039); IGI 8871; Goff S-372.