Epigrammata antiquae urbis. Cautum edicto Leonis X Pont. Opt. Max. ne quis in septennium hoc opus excudat alioque reus esto noxamque pendito by Giacomo Mazzocchi

Epigrammata antiquae urbis. Cautum edicto Leonis X Pont. Opt. Max. ne quis in septennium hoc opus excudat alioque reus esto noxamque pendito

Giacomo Mazzocchi

About this book

Folio. ff. [x], CLXXX, [8]. Signatures: π¹⁰ A⁴ B-Z⁶ ET⁶ [sic] [con]⁶ [rum]⁶ AA-CC⁶ DD-EE⁴ aa⁸ (EE1, EE2 signed EE2, EE3) [Collation differs from Adams, which has X⁴, and describes sig. EE as EE⁶ ( -EE1. EE6)]. Eighteenth-century vellum over boards. With 21 woodcut illustrations, including one full-page woodcut of the Pantheon, some ancient Roman inscriptions set within woodcut borders (some full architectural borders, some designed as ornamental tablets, others composed of separate strips); first quire (title, prelims, and index) wholly re-margined (with overlapping text on title verso) and likely supplied from another copy with two browned leaves. Marginal annotations and corrections in a contemporary hand to approx. 265 pp. First edition of the first printed repertory of Roman inscriptions, recording some 3000 inscriptions, mostly epitaphs, complemented with a rich illustrative apparatus, this copy extensively annotated and corrected by an evidently expert epigraphist. Giacomo Mazzocchi (fl. 1505–1527), humanist and printer in Rome, relied on the collaboration of the Florentine priest Francesco Albertini and possibly Mario Maffei, Bishop of Aquino, Mariangelo Accursio, and Andrea Fulvio, to achieve a repertory ranging from Republican times to the age of Justinian I. The stylized woodcuts show some of the principal buildings and monuments of Rome, such as the Pantheon, the Arch of Constantine, and the Pyramid of Cestius. Sources include inscriptions in the house of Angelo Colocci, Pomponius Laetus, Guiliano Dati and others. This sole edition has misfoliations and signings (including the mysterious sheet EE), differenty explained by Adams and Mortimer. In his "Reading Inscriptions and Writing Ancient History (2005), William Stenhouse has dealt has dealt extensively with this path-breaking sylloge of classical inscriptions extant in Rome in 1521, with special emphasis on on copies annotated by Italian and French antiquaries in the mid-16th century, among them Antonio Lelo, Latino Giovenale Manetti, and (after 1545) Jean Matal. The corrections and comments in this copy do not, however, derive from any of those illustrated by Stenhouse and will obviously repay serious study and comparison with CIL versions. One particularly important aspect of the laboriously corrected lapidary texts lies in the fact that many of the originals were damaged, destroyed, or removed in the siege and sack of Rome in 1527 and are today known only from the transcriptions (some serioulsy faulty) of Mazzocchi and his associates. This work ‘remains the fundamental book on Roman and early Christian epigraphy’ (D. De Menil & M. Raymond, Builders and Humanists: the Renaissance Popes as Patrons of the Arts. Houston, 1966, p. 200). “Ever since their first publication in 1521, when they were edited, the Epigrammata constituted a sort of epigraphical handbook for every humanist interested in Roman antiquities in general and epigraphy in particular. This is shown by the large number of copies with manuscript annotations […] that have survived” (G. González Germain, ‘Jean Matal and his Annotated Copy of the Epigrammata Antiquae Vrbis (Vat. Lat. 8495): The use of manuscript sources’ in Veleia, 29 (2012), pp. 149-168). This copy bears hundreds of marginalia containing references, opinions, corrections, and cross-references clearly by a contemporary Roman epigraphist, expert in Rome’s ancient history, familiar with its geography, and aware of the latest discoveries in local topography, including Onofrius Panvinius’ and Lafreri’s plates. Many instances of the note ‘vide correctiones’ in margins relate perhaps to a separate listing which the annotator might have been compiling ahead of a new edition. See also L. Cicognara, Catalogo ragionata dei libri d’arte e d’antichità posseduti dal Conte Cicognara. 2 vols. Pisa, 1821, 3789; R. Mortimer, Italian 16th Century Books [in the] Harvard College Library Department of Printing and Graphic Arts. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1974, 297; Choix de livres anciens rares et curieux, en vente à la librairie ancienne Leo S. Olschki, Florence. 16878; D.S. Rhodes, ‘Further notes on Publisher Giacomo Mazzocchi’ in: Papers of the British School at Rome, 40 (1972), pp. 239-42; H. M. Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge Libraries. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1967, E236. <a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/permalink/01JHU_INST/1lu78g9/alma991040482429707861" rel="nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a>

Details

OL Work ID: OL43011553W

Find this book

Open Library

About this book