ARISTOTLE
IN CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN BINDING
In hoc opere continentur totius phylosophiae naturalis paraphrases
Paris, Per Henricum Stephanu[m], 1512£5,950.00
8vo. ll. 336. Roman letter. Two full-page woodcuts depicting the cosmos, woodcut diagrams to text. Woodcut initials. T-p slightly dusty, light ink spotting, some very light marginal browning and foxing. Two C19 academic library stamps to blank of t-p and blank margin of C3r, old lib. no. stamped to margins of 3 prelims. Modern stamps of Jesuit library to t-p and one blank margin. Contemp. ms. additions of contents to t-p and front pastedown, early inscription to t-p visible but erased, ‘Ad … Petri Hectori’(?), C19 purchase inscription to ffep, occasional contemp. marginalia. A very good copy in original Venetian panelled morocco, central panel with arabesque centrepiece and cornerpieces in blind within roll-tooled border of Islamic-style knotwork, triple fillets, spine in compartments with single fillet hatching, lettered ‘Aristoteles’ in blind to head of upper board, edges stained in bands, corresponding to sections of the text. Handsome copy, lacking clasps and corners and edges slightly rubbed.
Extremely rare edition of this paraphrase of Aristotle’s Physics and other works of natural philosophy and metaphysics by the French humanist Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (c.1455-1536), first published 1501 and first published by Estienne in 1504.
Faber’s Latin paraphrases include the eight books of the Physics and smaller works on the cosmos, generation, weather, the soul, sense and sensation, memory, sleep and long life, followed by two explanatory dialogues by d’Étaples on the more difficult concepts handled in Aristotle’s texts. Appended is d’Étaples’ paraphrase of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The Physics is a foundational work of natural philosophy that discusses the nature of things changeable and in motion, such as the four elements, or infinite, such as the ‘Prime Mover.’ According to Bertrand Russell it was ‘extremely influential and dominated science until the time of Galileo.’ In the second work, ‘On heaven and Earth,’ Aristotle presents a geocentric model of the cosmos, illustrated here with diagrams describing the motions of the planets, earth, moon and sun. The Metaphysics is a significant philosophical work building on the Physics and some of the smaller works included here, such as those on memory and sensation. It is an ontological work investigating first causes and emphasising the importance of logical enquiry from first principles.
The binding is a good example of a Venetian trade binding employing Islamic style ornamentation, which appeared on Italian bindings from the fifteenth century, though combined here with more conventional tools. The use of knotwork borders was popularised in Padua and Venice in the late C15th and early C16th, though the lettering at the head of the binding identifies helps identify it as Venetian.
USTC 143967. Adams F 9. This ed. not in Renouard, Brunet or BM STC Fr. OCLC records two copies in North America, at LoC and the American Philosophical Library (USTC adds Houghton, but untraced).