Macrobius, Aurelius Theodosius | With an important world map, the first appearance of this version

Macrobius, Aurelius Theodosius

In Somnium Scipionis expositio. Saturnalia. Venice: Philippus Pincius, 29 October 1500

Chancery folio (295 x 212 mm); collation: a-f⁶ A-N⁶ O⁸. Woodcut initials, woodcut diagrams, woodcut world map on e6; early marginalia, some dampstaining and browning, scattered foxing, worming to final four leaves neatly repaired bus costing a few letters, a few laves with small marginal repairs. Full modern calf, covers ruled in blind, gilt cornerpieces.

Sixth and last incunable edition.

"Macrobius' lengthy excursuses on Pythagorean number lore, cosmography, world geography, and the harmony of the spheres established him as one of the leading popularizers of science in the Latin West. ... Macrobius and Martianus Capella were largely responsible for preserving Crates of Mallos' theory of an equatorial and meridional ocean dividing the earth into four quarters, each of which was assumed to be inhabited, and for the wide adoption of Eratosthenes' figure of 252,000 stades for the circumference of the earth. These concepts dominated scientific thinking on world geography in the Middle Ages" (DSB IX:1).

The work is of particular interest for the half-page circular world map. The woodcut map was copied (inaccurately) from the 1483 Brescia edition of Macrobius, so east and west have been reversed and some of the names have been omitted.

REFERENCE:

BMC V 499 (IB 23699); Campbell, Earliest Printed Maps 90; Goff M13; GW M19705; ISTC im00013000 Sander 4075; Shirley 13, Block 4 (map)