THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. With Notes by [Dean] H.H. Milman

6 volumes. Illustrated with fine large folding maps of the Western and Eastern Roman Empire, the Migrations of the Barbarians into the empire and many other maps at the end of each volume including among others, Constantinople, Environs of Rome, The Eastern Empire divided, Italy, Europe, Asia and Africa at the time of Charlemagne, the Mohammedan Empire, the Crusades and Ancient Rome, with most accented in colour. 8vo, in fine and handsome period bindings of three-quarter polished calf over marbled paper covered boards, the spines very handsomely gilt tooled within six compartments and featuring large central gilt devices surrounded by elaborate gilt tooling filling the compartments, two compartments with contrasting black and brown morocco labels gilt lettered and ruled, all separated by raised bands decorated with gilt stippling, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled. xliii, [2], 600; xii, 559; xv, [1], 543, [1]; xv, [1], 524; xv,[1], 506; xv, [1], 498 pp. A very fine set, internally fresh and clean and in excellent state of preservation, looking for the most part unused, the handsome bindings with just a touch of age, very bright and solid and attractive.

Edizione: a very handsome period bound set of the greatest historical work ever undertaken. adams, in his manual of historical literature, states that 'the superiority of this edition is very great, not simply in its material appearance, but also in its more essential characteristics. it has excellent maps, and it embodies the notes of milman'.<br> it was in italy while "musing amid the ruins of the capital" that gibbon formed the plan of his history. originally published in six volumes from 1776 to 1788, gibbon's fine scholarship has remained for the most part unchallenged. the work's numerous reprintings throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are evidence of its popularity and historical accuracy.<br> "for twenty-two years gibbon was a prodigy of steady and arduous application. his investigations extended over almost the whole range of intellectual activity for nearly fifteen-hundred years. and so thorough were his methods that the laborious investigations of german scholarship, the keen criticisms of theological zeal, and the steady researches of (two) centuries have brought to light very few important errors in the results of his labors. but it is not merely the learning of his work, learned as it is, that gives it character as a history. it is also that ingenious skill by which the vast erudition, the boundless range, the infinite variety, and the gorgeous magnificence of the details are all wrought together in a symmetrical whole. it is still entitled to be esteemed as the greatest historical work ever written" (adams, manual of historical literature, pp. 146-147).<br> the success of the work was immediate. "i am at a loss," gibbon wrote, "how to describe the success of the work without betraying the vanity of the writer. the first impression was exhausted in a few days; a second and third edition were scarcely adequate to the demand, and the bookseller's property was twice invaded by the pyrates of dublin. my book was on every table, and almost on every toilette." publication of this grand work placed gibbon at the "very head of the literary tribe" in europe, according to adam smith.