Suetonius Tranquillus VILLVS [de Vita Caesarum], cum Philippi Beroaldi et Marci Antonii Sabellici commentariis, cum figuris nuper additis.: The first Image of a Caesarian Section

This is the first edition with woodcut title and 80 woodcuts in text and numerous initials. Particularly noteworthy is the depiction of the birth of Caesar (f. 1), la plus ancienne illustration de l'opération césarienne (Sander). The word formation sectio caesarea - caesarean section (actually from Latin caedere = to cut out) is related to this caesarean (section) birth of Caesar. De Vita Caesarum, a set of biographies of 12 successive Roman caesars, from Julius Caesar (of which the first few chapters are no longer extant) to Domitian. These biographies are written according to a fixed formula (appearance, family, quotes, history). Suetonius was a close friend of Pliny the Younger and became secretary to the Emperor Hadrian. "The plan adopted by Suetonius in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars, led him to be more diffuse on their personal conduct and habits than on public events. He writes Memoirs rather than History. He neither dwells on the civil wars which sealed the fall of the Republic, nor on the military expeditions which extended the frontiers of the empire; nor does he attempt to develop the causes of the great political changes which marked the period of which he treats.When we stop to gaze in a museum or gallery on the antique busts of the Caesars, we perhaps endeavour to trace in their sculptured physiognomy the characteristics of those princes, who, for good or evil, were in their times masters of the destinies of a large portion of the human race. The pages of Suetonius will amply gratify this natural curiosity. In them we find a series of individual portraits sketched to the life, with perfect truth and rigorous impartiality. La Harpe remarks of Suetonius, "He is scrupulously exact, and strictly methodical. He omits nothing which concerns the person whose life he is writing; he relates everything, but paints nothing. His work is, in some sense, a collection of anecdotes, but it is very curious to read and consult." "Combining as it does amusement and information, Suetonius's "Lives of the Caesars" was held in such estimation, that, so soon after the invention of printing as the year 1500, no fewer than eighteen editions had been published, and nearly one hundred have since been added to the number. Critics of the highest rank have devoted themselves to the task of correcting and commenting on the text, and the work has been translated into most European languages." THE LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS By C. Suetonius Tranquillus; Revised and corrected by T.Forester, Esq., A.M. BM STC Ital. Books, 651. - Proctor-Isaac 12403; EDIT 16 CNCE 29626; Essling 1, 208. - Sander III, 7143. - Ebert 21895. Wellcome 1, 6139. Not in Mortimer, Italian Books.