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Historia Romana

by Appianus, of Alexandria

Price: $19,000.00
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Book description: Venice: Bernhard Maler (Pictor), Erhard Ratdolt, and Peter Lšslein, 1477. Quarto, 10.2 x 7.8 inches. Editio princeps. a-i10, k-n8, o10. 132 of 132 leaves, including the first blank, a1. Volume one only of two. This is a clean copy, with very large margins throughout. The first and last printed leaves have marginal paper restorations. This copy is bound in a beautifully executed unsigned early twentieth or late nineteenth-century binding. The crushed tan morocco is elaborately tooled in blind and gilt with interlocking knotwork patterns reminiscent of Islamic decoration. . ÒIn 1477 we have the magnificent edition of AppianÕs Roman History in two volumes quarto, [É] printed with the beautiful types used for the ÔKalendarium.Õ They are plentifully enriched with initial letters, sometimes printed in red ink, and they have all of them the gracefully designed title-borders for which the books of Ratdolt are so deservedly famous. [É] To my mind there are few printed books of any age which can be compared with the Appian of 1477, with its splendid black ink, its vellum-like paper, and the finished excellence of its typography. I remember the surprise expressed by an eminent bookseller at the price obtained in a London sale-room within the last seven years for a copy of the work in fine condition (I think the price was nine guineas), and his remark at the time, that this was three or four times the trade value of the book in question. It only served to show how entirely book prices are a matter of fashion, and how much booklovers fall into certain distinct grooves in the valuation of the best productions of the past.Ó (Quoted from Erhard Ratdolt and His Work at Venice, by Gilbert Redgrave.)AppianÕs Roman History Òin twenty-four books, written in Greek before 165, is more a number of monographs than a connected history. It gives an account of various peoples and countries from the earliest times down to their incorporation into the Roman Empire, and survives in complete books and considerable fragments. In spite of its style, the work is very valuable, especially for the period of the civil wars.Ó (Smith) 

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