Pliny the Elder, 1472

PLINIUS SECUNDUS, Gaius (23-79). Historia naturalis. Edited by Joannes Andreae de Buxiis (1417-1475), Bishop of Aleria. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1472.

First Jenson edition (third overall). The fruit of an inexhaustible curiosity, the Historia naturalis is Pliny’s only extant work. When Pliny died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, his Historia naturalis was considered unfinished in terms of its quest to record the entirety of human knowledge. Regardless, it remains one of the chief works to survive from the Roman Empire. It 'is more than a natural history; it is an encyclopaedia of all the knowledge of the ancient world […] It comprises thirty-seven books dealing with mathematics and physics, geography and astronomy, medicine and zoology, anthropology and physiology, philosophy and history, agriculture and mineralogy, the arts and letters. […] The Historia soon became a standard book of reference: abstracts and abridgements appeared by the third century, Bede owned a copy, Alcuin sent the early books to Charlemagne, and Dicuil, the Irish geographer, quotes him in the ninth century […] Over and over again it will be found that the source of some ancient piece of knowledge is Pliny’ (PMM 5).

Pliny’s great encyclopaedia became the first printed scientific work with Johannes de Spira’s first edition of 1469. Jenson’s first edition, here, showcases his famous and influential Roman type, first used in 1470. HC *13089; BMC V 172; BSB-Ink P-601; Bod-inc P-360; CIBN P-459; Essling 3; GW M34326; Goff P-788; Klebs 786.3; ISTC ip00788000.

Royal folio (396 × 258mm). 355 leaves (of 358, lacking the final text leaf and two final blanks). 12-line Lombard initials in red and blue, 2-line initials, paragraph marks and running chapter headings in alternating red and blue (first blank and 37/9 soiled, some staining in first quire and 2/1, the large initial on 1/4 excised and replaced with neat facsimile, 4/6r with about a dozen words replaced in neat facsimile, short marginal wormtrail in first and last dozen leaves, a scattered few spots and light stains). Early wooden boards covered in 18th-century calf, spine gilt in compartments, morocco lettering-piece (calf on upper cover and paper on upper pastedown are bubbled, light rubbing at extremities). Provenance: contemporary manuscript title on initial blank; a few pen trials – Abel Claude Marie Marthe, Marquis de Vichy (1740–1793, bibliophile and amateur natural historian; bookplate).