Cicero, Marcus Tullius: De natura deorum.
Add: De divinatione. De fato. De legibus. Academica lib. II. [Pseudo-] Modestus: De re militari. With additions by Raphael Zovenzonius.
[Venice]: Vindelinus de Spira, 1471.
4to. [112 2-78 86 9-138 146 15-238 244]. [188] leaves (1/1, 19/7-8, 24/4 i.e. ff. 1, 151, 152, 188 blank).
ISTC ic00569000; GW 6902; Goff C569; BMC V 158 (IB. 19529); Bod-inc C-299; CIBN C-391; BSB-Ink C-353.
The De re militari, which is often attributed to Modestus and also to Julius Pomponius Laetus, consists of extracts from Vegetius, Epitoma rei militaris - see Lorenzo Dalmasso ‘La storia di un estratto di Vegezio saggio sulla fortuna dell’ Epitoma rei militaris’ in Rendiconti Istituto Lombardo di scienze e lettere, ser. 2, 40 (1907) pp. 805-814.
University of Glasgow holds two copies
Copy 1
| GIP number: | C42/1 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Bg.3.9 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Variant: | The setting of quire 8 is as described in GW's main transcription, not as in GW Anm. 2. |
| Note: | The make-up of the first quire of 12 leaves conforms to the description given in CIBN (with leaves 1/6 and 1/7 clearly conjugate); leaf 1/12 beginning “citari fecit ...”, following an error in imposition, has been excised and correctly inserted between 1/2 (beginning of “Vita Ciceronis”) and 1/3 (“Cicero inter damnatos ...”) - see the explanatory note in CIBN. |
| Provenance: | William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: source unknown. University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate and book label on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “X.3.6”. |
| Binding: | Italy, 18th-century parchment; red leather title label on spine; yellow-edged leaves; green silk bookmark. Size: 288 x 206 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 278 x 199 mm. |
| Annotations: | Occasional marginal annotations in a humanist hand, mainly extracting keywords; very occasional manicules; evidence of early manuscript signatures and numbering of quires. |
| Decoration: | None. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaf 1/1. |
Copy 2
| GIP number: | C42/2 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Be.3.16 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Bound with: | The third of three incunabula bound together. Bound with: (1) Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Tusculanae disputationes. Paris: In vico sancti Jacobi [Louis Symonel et Socii (Au Soufflet Vert), between 1475 and 1479] (C59); (2) Cicero, Marcus Tullius, De finibus bonorum et malorum. [Paris: Au Soufflet Vert (Louis Symonel et Socii), between 1475 and 1479] (C39). |
| Provenance: | Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: Gaignat sale, 1769; lot 1497 in Guillaume de Bure, Bibliographie instructive: supplément ... ou catalogue des livres de feu M. L.J. Gaignat, 2 vols (Paris: 1769). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 26 livres 1 sou; see Dessain-Hunter correspondence (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 23v). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate and book-label on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “Aa.5.12”. |
| Binding: | France, 18th-century red goatskin; covers decorated with a triple gold-fillet border, a six-pointed gold star at each corner; gold-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves; turquoise silk bookmark. Size: 280 x 195 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 273 x 186 mm. |
| Annotations: | Very occasional marginal annotations and nota marks in a 16th-century hand (mostly washed out); quires numbered “16”-“20” in pencil in an 18th-century hand in inner top corner of first recto. |
| Decoration: | Three-line initial “S” on 16/1r (f. 121r) and three-line initial “S” on 17/3r (f. 131r) supplied in red and blue with reserved white; capitals washed in yellow throughout. |
| Imperfections: | Quires 15-19 only i.e. ff. 113-152 containing De fato and De legibus. Many leaves are brittle and fragmenting. |
