THE GOLDEN BOOKE OF MARCUS AURELIUS, Emperour and Eloquent Oratour

A very early printing of the first translation into English, translated by Lord Berners, John Bourchier. Title-page within woodcut border, woodcut tailpieces on the final page of text and after the colophon, which has a woodcut printer's mark on the verso. Small 8vo, in antique full tan calf, the boards with fine blind-tooled panels, the spine richly decorated in blind between raised bands, one compartment with a red morocco label ruled in lettered in gilt, additional gilt lettering at the foot, page edges and end-leaves marbled. A1-nn8, lacking mm2-mm8. A handsome copy, quite fresh and solid, a small defect to the first leaf of the table at front effecting a few words of text, very occasional other trivial soiling or evidence of use, occasional early marginal evidence of long ago damp, very minor, the binding handsome and strong.

Edizione: a scarce 16th century english edition of antonio de guevara's discourse on the ideal rule of kings based upon the examples of marcus aurelius.<br> guevara served as historian to the holy roman emperor and king of spain, charles v. this work is a life of marcus aurelius, and an original work meant to use examples from aurelius' life to function as a discourse on ideal rule for the new king. guevara claimed to have discovered it in an old manuscript volume. and he maintained that his contributions and decisions as an editor were merely of style and not of real substance. it "presented a richly drawn portrait of marcus aurelius as an emperor and as a man. the book's extraordinary success was owed in no small part to this humanized characterization. in the 17th-century it was said that in its epoch, no book but the bible enjoyed such a wide diffusion. (it] created a new dimension to the personality of marcus aurelius, popularizing the emperor as the ideal prince."