Caesar, Historien vom Gallier und der Römer Burgerische Krieg, Mainz, 1532, later half calf

CAESAR, GAIUS JULIUS

Historien vom Gallier und der Römer Burgerische Krieg [translated by Matthias Ringmann]. (Mainz: Ivo Schoeffer, July) 1532

folio (303 x 197mm.), woodcut illustrations (some full-page, some composite), woodcut device at end, later calf-backed boards, first two leaves with small repairs at foot, repaired tear in X1, binding somewhat worn, upper cover detached

An early German translation of Caesar's Gallic Wars and Civil War, together with Plutarch's life of Caesar. It was first printed in Strassburg by Johann Grüninger in 1507, and again in 1508, before being reprinted in 1530 by Johann Schoeffer and in 1532 (as here) by his nephew Ivo Schoeffer, reusing some of Grüninger's fine woodcuts. The translator, Ringmann (1482-1511), a humanist scholar, is better known as a collaborator of the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, with whom he also prepared a Latin translation of Ptolemy's Geographia.

Caesar's influence at this time related more to his battle strategies and details of tactics rather than his personality or his prose; his text was used to provide practical military details. The costumes are contemporary rather than classical, which also occurs with the illustrated German Vegetius of c. 1512 (see lot 444).

LITERATURE:

IA 128.691; VD16 C 57

PROVENANCE:

Cornelius Paine (of Brighton, West Indies merchant), armorial bookplate and signature on verso of flyleaf, sale, Sotheby's, 16 February 1891 (the library was put together by Cornelius Paine père et fils; the latter died in 1890)