Rhetoricorum Ad. C. Herennium: Libri IV

Rhetoricorum Ad. C. Herennium: Libri IV

Ciceronis, book's author

Paulli Manutii [editor]

Venetiis: Aldus

1569

Katherine Owens researched and wrote the event description in 2018.

For a description of the book, please click on the image of the event label/description or scroll to the bottom of the page for the section entitled "Text" for a transcription of the attached document.

Literature

SPECIAL PA8135 .C53 1569

Latin, book's contents
English, event description

This book has another record in the "Beautiful Books" Lobby Display Collection.
To see this book on November 15, 2018 in the “Event Photographs” Collection, please go here [Photograph of Books] 05448, here [Photograph of Books] 05449, and here [Photograph of Books] IMG_0587.

This book is also featured in our Damaged Books  digital exhibit. To see that record, please use this link: Rhetoricorum Ad. C. Herennium: Libri IV.

Transcript of event description:

RHETORICORUM AD. C. HERENNIUM: LIBRI IV | CICERONIS AND PAULLI MANUTII | VENETIIS: ALDUS | 1569

You look at this book and no doubt ask, “Why, it’s plain?” Until this summer, we had no reason to suspect that the binding was not from 1569. Then, by chance, writing was seen on the inside of the front and back covers. The integrity of the binding does not appear to have been altered since the 1560s except the endpapers are a thicker paper than the rest and covers the writing. The writing on the inside front cover is hard to decipher except for “Stephani” and the date “Anno 1733 // Oct 111111” (6). On the back cover we can read “Ex Libris,” “Stephani,” “Bestou” or “Biston,” “Tuirinensis” or Taurinensis,” and the date “MDCCXXXI” (1731). Written inside are two names, “Antony” and a near-illegible last name, and “Stephanus Bistonis.” Stephani is the English feminine form of Stephan/Stephanus. We think that either he was testing different Latinized forms of his name inside a nearly 200 year-old book (!), or he named his daughter Stephani, and both father and daughter wrote on Rhetoricum.

The binding looks like vellum. The title of the first volume in the book is printed on the bottom edge, meaning that at one time the book was shelved so the bottom edge faced the room. The title, author, publisher, and date have also been printed on the spine, twice.

Cicero is an important Classical author. The printer of the book, Aldus Manutii (Jr.) is the grandson of Aldus Manutius who is one of the most famous printers ever! He was active in Venice until his death in 1515. Aldus Jr.’s father, Paul, was an editor of Cicero. Their family press is known as the Aldine Press, and their books are some of the most desirable ever made. The Aldine Press was founded in c. 1495 by Aldus (Sr.)’s father-in-law, and between the Torresani and Manutius family, the Aldine Press was in operation until 1588, although in the last years the Torresani family ran a separate press they called the Aldine Press. Aldus Sr. developed the italics type font, and the much-loved printer’s device of a dolphin entwined with an anchor cut from a plate of copper. Each generation had a slight variation, and the ones printed here were Aldus Jr.’s. There is a catchword at the bottom of each page so the reader can be reading the next page while turning it! Aldus Jr. would have been a young man when this book was printed. He was in his mid-teens when he took over the family business in 1563.

English Professor Emeritus, Dr. Andrew “Drew” Dillon, who taught at Flagler for several decades, donated this book just over a year before his death in 2015. He is remembered fondly by all who knew him.

Book / Unpublished Print Document