Lot 189: 

GELENIUS, Sigismund (1497-1554), editor. Notitia utraque cum orientis tum occidentis ultra Arcadii Honoriique caesarum tempora, illustre vetustatis monumentum. Basel: Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopus, 1552.

2υo (302 x 204 mm). Collation: *υ8 a-oυ6 pυ4 q-rυ6. 108 leaves. Roman type. Interleaved. Woodcut and metalcut historiated initials in various sizes. Large woodcut printer's device on title page and verso of last leaf, 106 woodcut illustrations, of which 85 full-page and 16 half-page, ALL COLORED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND. (First nine leaves with small wormhole in upper margin, a4-6 with small wormhole in lower margin, internal marginal tear on f4, pale marginal stain on m1, small adhesion on device at end.) Contemporary vellum (spine defective, lacking ties); quarter morocco slipcase. Provenance: Johann Jacob Ziegler (early ownership inscription on title); Joseph von Lassberg (?1728 inscription on front free endpaper); Donaueschingen, Court Library, Princes of Fürstenberg (ink stamp on verso of title and beneath colophon; sold Sotheby's London, 7 June 1982, lot 66); acquired from Marlborough Rare Books, 1982.

A VERY FINELY COLORED COPY OF THE FIRST COMPLETE AND FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION of the Notitia dignitatum, a list of high officials of the Roman empire, compiled ca 400 A.D. Sigismund Gelenius based his edition on a manuscript at Speier (lost in the 17th century). That manuscript also appears to have formed the basis for the coloring of the present copy. Tim Cornell and John Matthews in Atlas of the Roman World reproduce the 1436 copy of the Speier manuscript at the Bodleian which has similar coloring to the present. There are cuts showing the insignia of all the Roman legions, the costumes and hairstyles of roman women, and the form of ancient codices and bookbindings. The woodcuts are attributed to Conrad Schnitt by Koegler or alternatively to Christoph Schweytzer by Nagler.

Gelenius' edition also includes a tract by Andrea Alciati on Roman military and civil organization, Victor Publius's topographical description of ancient Rome, and the last two pages contain the hidden first printing of an early medieval collection of enigmas in the form of a dialogue, the Altercatio Adriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi (see Manutius I, p.284). The anonymous section that precedes this, De rebus bellicis includes for the first time the idea of propelling a ship without oars and sails, and the invention of the paddle-wheel , which inspired Leonardo da Vinci (see E.A. Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, 1952, p.53). In the Cambridge copy as described by Adams quire p contains 6 leaves; the present copy is one of a number of copies with a variant collation in which the complete quire p contains 4 leaves (such as Rosenwald and Olschki Choix III:3489). Adams N-354 (inaccurate collaction); Rosenwald 909; Nagler IV:3987; Potthast II: 668 and 945.

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