"...the god of unholy strife rages throughout the world..."
An intricately printed leaf with contemporary glosses.
Of all classical Latin poets, Virgil has held the most secure place in the canon of great authors. His works became school texts in ancient Rome and his perceived affinity with Christianity meant that his poetry was widely read in the Middle Ages. The Georgics, (from Greek, “On Working the Earth”) is a didactic poem by Virgil, likely published in 29 BC.
Verso: A leaf from the end of Book 1 with the introduction to Book 2 by Antonio Mancinelli. Three woodcut initials.
Recto: Heading Georgicorum. Liber I. Fo[lio]LXXVIII (Georgics. Book One. Page 78). Virgil’s original text is in the larger font. The gloss (commentary) of Marius Servius is indicated in the margin ‘SER’ and that of Mancinelli by ‘MAN’.
Printer: Jean Petit, Paris, 1507.
Content: The English translation of Virgil’s text on Recto, beginning (Dignus honos: squalent abductis arua colonis) is:
["For here are right and wrong inverted; so many wars overrun the world, sin walks in so many shapes;] respect for the plough is gone; our lands, robbed of the tillers, lie waste, and curved pruning hooks are forged into straight blades. Here Euphrates, there Germany, calls to arms; breaking the covenants which bind them, neighbouring cities draw the sword; the god of unholy strife rages throughout the world, even as when from the starting gates the chariots stream forth and gather speed lap by lap, while the driver, tugging vainly at the reins, is carried along by his steeds, and the car heeds not the curb!"
Glosses: Jodocus Badius Ascensius (1462-1535) was a scholar and printer who played a central role in the flourishing of humanism and print culture in the French Renaissance. He was known for the ‘familiar’ commentaries he wrote and published as introductions to the major authors of Latin antiquity, as well as on texts by medieval and contemporary authors.
Antonio Mancinelli (1452 – 1505) was a humanist pedagogue, grammarian, and rhetorician from Velletri who taught in Venice, Rome, and Orvieto.
Notes: It is difficult to fully appreciate the audacity of Virgil's enterprise in writing the Georgics. He produced a poem to teach subjects completely alien to the higher literary tradition, a poem which was his heritage: sheep-dipping, soil-testing. irrigation, bee-keeping, viticulture, manuring and the like.
By Virgil's day, Roman agriculture had become a science; many of its precepts not essentially unlike those of today. Through observation and experimentation the Romans knew, for example, that graft compatibility depended at least on stock and scion being intrafamilial, and preferably intrageneric; somehow they had hit upon the fact that the rotation of wheat crops with legumes brought about what we know as nitrogen-fixation which revitalised the soil.
Condition: The leaf is in excellent condition, with original margins and just a very light stain in the inner bottom corner. It is unconditionally guaranteed genuine.
Size: approx. 310x210 mm. Please note that shipping is invoiced separately.
Item: PSE132
