Lot 178: Estienne, Robert

Estienne, Robert
Dictionarium, sev latina lingua thesaurus, Editio Secunda. Paris: Robert Estienne,1543 , 3 volumes, folio, text in double columns, large decorative white on black woodcut initials, Estienne''s large "Noli Altum Sapere" device on title, original vellum with gilt calf labels, spine of vol. 1 neatly repaired, with 19th century library stamps on title and first page of each volume, small marginal paper repairs to gatherings p-q and Ss, flaw repaired with loss to AA4, small hole in III3, and small tear repaired in last folio with very slight loss, light spotting, some light marginal dampstaining in volume three

Note: Adams S 1820; Brunet II, 1070; Graesse II, 506; Renourard p. 55: 7; Printing and the Mind of Man, 62.

This is the third and most complete edition of Estienne''s monumental Thesaurus and is considered definitive, although noted as "editio secunda" on the title page as Estienne probably did not consider the first edition of 1532 complete enough to be worth mentioning. The Thesaurus can be considered as one of the great achievements of the late renaissance as it opened up and made accessible a world of scholarship hitherto reserved for a very small elite. "The series of dictionaries edited and published by the Estienne or Stephanus family is perhaps the most significant, though by no means the sole achievement of the most renowned family of scholar printers in history. Robert I....was the greatest of them all...above all, as the first scientific lexicographer of both ancient and modern languages...(his) work is still unsurpassed as a whole." (PMM).

Provenance: Elizabeth Armstrong''s copy with her printed ex-libris on first pastedown.