P. TERENTIA AFRI POET LEPIDISSIMI COMOEDIAE:

Full Title: P. TERENTIA AFRI POET LEPIDISSIMI COMOEDIAE: Andria, Eunuchus, Heavtontimorvmenos, Adelphi, Hecyra, Phormio, ex emendatissimis ac fide dignissimis codicibus summa diligentia castigat, metris in suum ordinem recte restitutis, ac uarijs lectionibus in margine appositis ex collatione prostremarum editionum Aldini & Gryphiani exemplaris. Elenchum interpretum, qui in had comoedias docte simul & erudite scripserunt, proxima subinde pagina demonstrabit. Eorum qu in his interpretum commentarijs annotata sunt, index amplissimus. pp. [22], 154 [i.e. 308], 117 [i.e. 234, [8]. Lacks two leaves of front matter (*2 & *3). Various errors in pagination as recorded in other examples. Folio. 320 mm. Old full vellum binding. Double and triple column Latin text in Italic and Roman. Great many bold woodcut illustrations of the scenes appear throughout the volume, and add to its charm. The various early paper 'repairs' to the title probably cover up old ownerships. Written some time after these repairs is an ink manuscript notation: Della Libreria de S(an) Vincenzo (in Tuscany). CEdit Iniquos - which seems to identify the text and/or editing as unjust, evil, and/or wicked. not too unusual for pagan works. On the front flyleaf is the 18th or 19th century autograph ownership of A. Wallis (unidentified). Publius Terentius Afer (195/185-159 BC), better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170-160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on, impressed by his abilities, freed him. Terence apparently died young, probably in Greece or on his way back to Rome. He only wrote six plays. All survived, and are printed here. In this famous 1545 edition of Terence, Scoto, provided three summaries for the action of each scene by different humanist scholars of note. The innovation was immediately popular. The basic layout problem in the case of Terence was that the text consists of short scenes with much back-and-forth badinage while the apparatus was typically very lengthy. Early printers of these texts arranged the commentary for each scene all around the base text, creating a window or windows for the words of Terence. The resulting window-and-frame layouts are visually very lively, with each spread slightly different from the last, depending on the length of the commentary with respect to the text. As the sixteenth century progressed, however, it became more usual to employ a simple two-column format that placed the base text of each scene first and the commentary afterwards, alternating but running continuously from column to column. The four columns on a spread owned variety and visual interest because the text of Terence was set in larger type and more generously leaded than the commentary, but the result was rarely as handsome as the older layouts. This two-column format took over because it was much easier to set, correct, revise, and reprint than a window-and-frame. Similarly, fewer and fewer options were exercised in ornamenting and illustrating the folio text as the century wore on. Virtually the only ambitious editions from this point of view are this 1545 Scoto and the 1553 Cesano. These books preserve something of the grace of earlier folios, with scene-by-scene illustrations that characterized some folio editions in the fourteen nineties. Illustrations of individual scenes disappeared entirely after the 1555. The wonderful woodcuts are valued mainly for what they tell us of the Italian stage in the 15th and 16th century. BM STC Italian p. 664. ADD1 Safe