Proba Falconia, Venice, [1520], modern vellum

PROBA, FALTONIA BETITIA

Centones Vergilii. (Venice: Bernardinus Benalius), [c. 1520]

4to (206 x 152mm.), 12 ff., a-c⁴, woodcut initial, later vellum

This work, a religious poem by the fourth-century Christian poetess Faltonia (or Falconia) Proba, was printed as the fourth part of a volume also containing Philippus de Barberiis, Discordantiae sanctorum doctorum Hieronymi et Augustini, though as there are many surviving copies of just the Centones, it may well have been issued separately. The Centones are extracts from Vergil arranged in order to describe episodes from the Old and New Testaments. Proba appears in Boccaccio's In praise of famous women.

LITERATURE:

Edit16 75942 (listing 2 copies); cf. ISTC ib00121000 (the larger work, previously assigned to the fifteenth century)

PROVENANCE:

Costanzo Maria Zinelli (of Brescia), eighteenth-century inscription on inside front cover; JBG, armorial bookplate