Avienus, Arati phaenomena, Venice, 1488, modern calf

AVIENUS, RUFIUS FESTUS

Arati phaenomena. Dionysius Periegetes: De situ orbis [translated by Avienus]. Avienus: Ora maritima. Aratus: Phaenomena [translated by Germanicus]. Aratus: Phaenomena [translated by Cicero]. Quintus Serenus Sammonicus: Carmen medicinale. Venice: Antonius de Strata, de Cremona, 25 October 1488

4to (189 x 131mm.), 119 leaves (of 122, without initial blank and two final blanks), a¹⁰ b-p⁸, 38 lines, roman type, woodcut illustrations, modern leather, a4 repaired at foot and p6 repaired at head (both just touching text)

FIRST EDITION of Avienus's translation of Aratus's poem on the constellations and the heavens; it is a Neoplatonic interpretation of Aratus, and firmly rooted in the religious controversies of fourth-century Rome. The text is expanded considerably from Aratus's original (written soon after 276BC, probably at the court of Macedon), and shows connections with Julius Firmicus Maternus's De nativitatibus as well as the Emperor Julian's hymn to the sun god Helios.

The translations of Aratus by Cicero and by Germanicus Caesar, also present in this volume, are from the mid first century BC and the early first century AD; Cicero elsewhere describes Aratus as a fine poet whose language compensates for any lack of subject knowledge, while Germanicus interprets Aratus through an Augustan viewpoint; the woodcuts here accompany the text of Germanicus. The final text is a didactic poem on medicine. The editor of this volume, Vettore Pisani, was a pupil of Giorgio Valla.

LITERATURE:

ISTC ia01432000

PROVENANCE:

Charles Leeson Prince (1821-1899), large bookplate dated 1882; George James Symons (1838-1900), meteorologist, bequeathed to the Royal Meteorological Society with the Symons bequest bookplate dated 1900