La tavola di Cebete Tebano.

8vo (192x124 mm.). [12], 78, [2] pp. (first and last ll. are blank). Nice uncut copy. On the front pastedown a small ex-libris “Libreria Antiquaria di Ulrico Hoepli”. Contemporary marbled cardboards (slightly worn and rubbed).
 
First, and only, Bodoni edition of one of the most famous ecphrases ('Ekphrasis) of antiquity. The volume is one of the 50 existing copies with the dedicatory letter to the marquise Paolina Rosa-Prati Sanvitale. In this writing the author (usually identified with the Greek philosopher Cebetes of Thebes) describes in words a votive work of art hanging outside the sanctuary of Saturn. “In the dialogue of Cebetes, two young men are told of two young men who see, among the offerings placed in the temple dedicated to Chronos, a painted panel offered by a foreigner who was a disciple of Pythagoras and Parmenides. They are unable to understand what it represents until an old man arrives and explains to them the meanings hidden in the symbols represented in the painting, which is meant to be an allegory of the fate of the human soul, enclosed in various enclosures contained within one another” (Bibl. ref: Gamba 2192).
Brooks, nr. 510; Brunet I, 170; De Lama, vol. 2, p. 88-89.