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1544 EDITIO PRINCEPS OF JOSEPHUS' OPERA
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JOSEPHUS, FLAVIUS.
Opera.
Editio
princeps of the original Greek texts of Josephus, printed in
1544 by the great Froben press. $13,000.
Basel: Froben &
Episcopius, 1544. Folio, contemporary blind-tooled pigskin over
wooden boards. Light wear to corners and edges, spine label lacking;
occasional worming to boards and first twenty leaves; wear to title,
principally due to worming. Marginal annotations in Greek throughout
in a delicate, scholarly script. The annotations are dated from 1546
to 1549. An exceptionally well-preserved copy.
Josephus writings
represent the only contemporaneous historical account to link the
secular world of Rome and the religious heritage of the Bible.
Indeed, Josephus is the only historian to give a detailed
contemporaneous account of the first Christian century. His greatest
work is his Antiquitates Judaicae (The Antiquities of the
Jews) in which he recounts the history of the Jews from creation up
until the revolt of AD 66-70 and contains contemporary references to
Jesus, James (the brother of Jesus), John the Baptist, Pontius
Pilate, Herod the Great, Agrippa I and Agrippa II, as well as the
Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Zealots. His Bellum Judaicum
(History of the Jewish War) gives a detailed account of the revolt
of AD 66-70 and includes Josephus’ famous description of the siege
of Jerusalem. “The Jewish War not only is the principal source for
the Jewish revolt but is especially valuable for its description of
Roman military tactics and strategy” (Britannica).
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Josephus’
famous account of Jesus (from Antiquitates Judaicae):
“Now there rose about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful
to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher
of such men as receive truth with gladness. He carried away with him
many of the Jews and also many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And
after Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had
condemned him to the cross, his first adherents did not forsake him.
For he appeared to them alive again the third day; the divine
prophets having foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful
things concerning him. And the tribe of those called Christians,
after him, is not extinct to this day.”
Josephus’
remarkable description of the siege of Jerusalem (from Bellum
Judaicum):
“But when they went in numbers into the lanes of the city, with
their swords drawn, they slew those whom they overtook, without
mercy, and set fire to the houses wither the Jews were fled, and
burnt every soul in them, and laid waste a great many of the rest;
and when they were come to the houses to plunder them, they found in
them entire families of dead men, and the upper rooms full of dead
corpses, that is of such as died by the famine; they then stood in a
horror at this sight, and went out without touching anything. But
although they had this commiseration for such as were destroyed in
that manner, yet had they not the same for those that were still
alive, but they ran every one through whom they met with, and
obstructed the very lanes with their dead bodies, and made the whole
city run down with blood, to such a degree indeed that the fire of
many of the houses was quenched with these men's blood. And truly so
it happened, that though the slayers left off at the evening, yet
did the fire greatly prevail in the night, and as all was burning,
came that eighth day of the month Gorpieus [Elul] upon Jerusalem; a
city that had been liable to so many miseries during the siege,
that, had it always enjoyed as much happiness from its first
foundation, it would certainly have been the envy of the world. Nor
did it on any other account so much deserve these sore misfortunes,
as by producing such a generation of men as were the occasions of
this its overthrow."
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A
superb contemporary binding: The illustrated binding of
blind-tooled pigskin over wooden boards is a magnificent example of
late-medieval craftsmanship. The boards are illustrated with busts
of bearded men topped with halos, crowns, mitres and other venerable
symbols: these illustrations include Moses receiving the
commandments, the grace of God and King, the holy warrior, and the
learned doctor, among others (click image for closeup). Aside from
these illustrations, the boards are decorated with six wide
double-borders forming six rectangular compartments of diminishing
size. The third-largest compartment contains the illustrations. The
two innermost compartments on both boards contain floral ornaments.
On the upper board, the two innermost compartments are square in
shape, while on the lower board they are rectangular. The upper
board retains one brass catch with a floral etching, while the lower
board retains the brass bases for both clasps. The spine is divided
by raised bands into five compartments. Each band is bordered in
blind.
Beautifully
printed: “[The Froben’s press] is remarkable for the
number and importance of its productions, as well as for excellence
of workmanship. In his desire for accuracy Froben surrounded himself
with a number of scholars to whom he deputed the work of editing and
correcting. Chief among these was Erasmus, who, after visiting him
on several occasions, in 1521 permanently took up his residence with
the printer and gave fresh impetus to the press” (The Printed Book
by Harry G. Aldis).
With
contemporary annotations:
There are
numerous neat ink annotations in the margins of the text dated from
the 9th of May, 1546, to the final entry of the 9th of February,
1549. Generally in Greek, the commentary highlights the places in
Josephus’s text where references are made to Jesus Christ and John
the Baptist. The commentary also includes three very personal
annotations in Latin, marking pauses in the writing for important
events that impacted life in general or upon the personal life of
the commentator. These comments include mention of his brother, the
death of a parent, and, perhaps most interestingly, reference to
what was likely the Schmalkaldic War (1546-47) between the
Protestants and Catholics that was then being waged.
All in all,
one of the most influential books in Western Civilization, in rare
and extraordinary contemporary binding. |
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