Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

Out of order 

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CICERO. M. TULLII CICERONIS ORATIONUM Volumen I [-III]. Post Pauli Manutii aliorumque doctißimorum Virorum correctiones, collata quoque duorum vetustiorum Exemplarium fide, diligenter emendatum. Scholiis insuper artificium indicantimus, & Lectionis varietate, ad marginem appositis, illustratum. Praefiximus huic Editioni, pagellu alioquin vacaturu, M.T. Ciceroni Vitam, ex Dionysio Lambyno decerptam, quae in Orationum harum limmine digna positu visa est. Augustae Munatianae [i.e. Basel]: Sumptibus Johan. Ludovici König, 1703 [and 1699 and 1702]. £400

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Three volumes, 16mo, pp. [xxxii], 655, [1] blank; [xiv], 603, [19]; [vi], 600; woodcut vignettes, head- and tailpieces, and initials; occasional marginal notes and corrections in ink in a contemporary hand (possibly that of Louis Katz), inscription in ink on front free endpaper of volume one; some browning throughout, tear to front free endpaper of volume three; in contemporary half vellum, marbled boards; titles in ink on spines; boards somewhat rubbed, and dustsoiling to spines, but still an appealing copy, with early ownership signatures of Louis Katz on all three volumes.

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Curious Basel printing, by Johann Ludwig König, of Cicero’s collected speeches, based on Paulus Manutius’ sixteenth-century texts. The turn of the eighteenth century was a fertile time for Cicero printing, with Blaeu in Amsterdam producing a celebrated six-volume edition over four years from 1695, and this may have inspired König, but what sets this printing apart is the order: volume one was in fact the last to appear, in 1703, preceded by volumes two and three in 1699 and 1702 respectively. 

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OCLC records the following locations: Vol 1 at Thuringen, the Badische Landesbibliothek, and the Swedish Royal Library; vol 2 at Göttingen, Freiburg, Neuchatel, Solothurn, Basel, and the Swedish Royal Library; and vol 3 at the Swedish Royal Library only; not in LibraryHub. 

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