(Vergilius Maro, Publius). Opera Vergiliana docte (et) familiariter exposita: docte quid(m) Bucolica: & Georgica a Seruio. Donato. Mancinello: & Propo nuper addito...(Title of Volume 2:)Aeneis Vergiliana... 2 volumes bound in 1. Lyon, Iacobus Sacon for Ciriacus Hochperg, 1517. With 208 woodcuts in different sizes and numerous decorative initials, all woodcuts finely coloured by a contemporary hand. Folio (c. 325 x 218 mm). Dark brown original calf leather binding of the 16th century over wooden boards, blind-tooled, front cover tooled in gilt: "Virgilius" and "151..." with two brass clasps (spine professionally restored).

The Lyon Vergil edition of 1517 in the version by Iodocus Badius Ascensius (Josse Bade) once again offers the more than 200 Strasbourg woodcuts of the 1502 edition (see lot 32 in our catalogue). All of them appear here in equally fascinating and sophisticated contemporary colouring. In Alsace, the illustrations seem to have remained well-known; in any case, the early provenance of the copy preserved in the original binding points to the Jesuit College in Molsheim and the Strasbourg legal family Bitsch. According to our research, this seems to be the only copy in original colouring to have appeared on the market within the last 100 years.

Jacques Sacon had already published a first edition of Virgil in 1499; for the present edition he used the version by Iodocus Badius Ascensius, first printed by Thielman Kerver in Paris between 1500 and 1501 [cf. Mortimer], as the basis for the text, and the woodcuts from the Strasbourg edition of 1502 [cf. Mortimer], (see our exceptional copy of 1502: lot 32 in our catalogue 90 Wunderkammer). In the Lyon edition they already show "signs of wear" [Mortimer], which is more than compensated by the wonderful and luminous contemporary colouring with its distinguished application.

Provenance: Jesuit College of Molsheim in Alsace - 1686 dated entry of ownership by the Strasbourg professor Johann Kaspar Bitsch (1668 - 1721). French private collection.

Literature: Adams V 468; Baudrier 12, 344ff.; BM STC French 442; Brun 312; Brunet V, 1282; cf. Fünf Jahrhunderte 61 (Strasbourg edition 1502); Graesse VI/2, 336; Mambelli 135; Mortimer, French, Nr. 537M; cf. Muther 557 (Strasbourg edition 1502); Panzer VII, S. 316f., No. 337; Renouard 1908, III, 364f.; Schmidt 1883, No. 60 (Strasbourg edition 1502); Schweiger II/2 1157.

This book has been described in great detail in our catalogue 90 “Wunderkammer”, lot 39, available in our Online Shop. You can view the digital catalogue here.

Vergil's Works with more than 200 Originally Coloured Woodcuts: Probably the Only Known Copy of this Kind