MASSARI Francesco In nonum Plinii de naturali historia librum castigationes & annotationes.

Adams M-861; BM, German, 599.

First edition of this important work.

This commentary on Pliny’s ninth book deals exclusively with fish and aquatic life. A precious edition by Beatus Rhenanus. It is important not only for the corrections and annotations made by the humanist from Sélestat, but also for the important contribution to philology made by his dedicatory epistle. In it, Beatus Rhenanus points out that Massari’s work is based on his travels in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and openly criticises the methodological approach of the author, who had been a pupil of Hermolano Barbaro. Barbaro, himself a pupil of Gaza, gave more importance to his own corrections than to the original Greek text: reversing the method adopted by his master for the translation of Aristotle, he proposed more than 5,000 corrections to Pliny’s texts in his Castigations Plinianae published in 1492. Beatus Rhenanus noticed this methodological problem and criticised it in his dedication.

Bound at head: ALTHAMER, Andreas. Commentaria Germaniae in P. Cornelii Taciti… Nuremberg, Johannes Petreius, 1536. 4to, 24 nn.ll., 341 pp., 1 nn.l.

Adams, T-48; BM, German, 848. Second edition (the first dates from 1529) of Althamer’s important commentary on Tacitus’ description of Germania. It is decorated with a fine title in a woodcut frame with portraits of Georg and Albrecht of Brandenburg, to whom the treatise is dedicated.

Provenance: Initials on binding and Signature of Caspar (or Gaspar) Zinnius on the inside cover, indicating the book’s acquisition in Strasbourg on 19 September 1556. Caspar ZInn (1534-1599), priest from the town Ostheim, is know to have had a correspondence with Johann Conrad Ulmer from  Schaffhausen. Other signature on the title of Althamer’s work: “Georgius Adamus Schochig”. Annotations by different hands, notably at the beginning of the first book.

A very fine copy in its first binding.