An early, and surprisingly uncommon Venetian edition of third-century theologian Origenes’ commentary on St Paul’s epistle to the Romans, in a manuscript waste binding, and with pastedowns of printer’s waste. We have found just three copies in North America.
The translation by Rufinus of Aquilea is here attributed to St Jerome, and was edited in the sixteenth century by Theophilus Salodianus, for Simone da Lovere’s 1506 edition. The present work from Benali’s press is essentially a reprinting of that edition of six years before. Benali also printed other of Origenes’ commentaries a few months before this one, in May 1512; that work, in turn, was a reprint of the Aldine edition of 1503 (Quae hoc in libro continentur. Origenis in Genesim homiliae 16… Venice: Aldus, 1503). There were other editions printed in Venice, by Lazzaro Soardi in the first half of the sixteenth century.
Though bound cheaply, this is a hard-wearing volume, intended for use (and clearly used). All visible elements of the binding are recycled manuscript and printed waste; the parchment used to cover the boards is a single leaf from an early twelfth-century manuscript; the printed leaves used as pastedowns here are from a work of canon law, likely from a Venetian press*.* Further fragments of later manuscript waste have been used to line the spine, just visible at the upper and lower joints.
Provenance: Neat marginal notes and manicules in at least two different hands, one sixteenth-century, throughout. C17th inscription to title page, ‘A di 9 Marzo 1664. fu batezato Gio. Maria di Sante da Ponteccio da D. Gio. Battista Dorio Cappellano di Magliano et [?] ?costaro D. Paolo Banchieri da Ponteccio et [Eli]sabetta di Andr. di Antonio da Gregorio. Io D. Paolo Capellano di Ponteccio ho fatto il presente ricordo’. Further inscription above title ‘Ad uso Joanis Marie de Franchijs de…’, the name repeated at the head of the front pastedown, with some doodles.
Folded credit note tucked towards the end of the volume dated 10 June, 1679, outlining an agreement between Sante di Giuliano of Pontecchio with a butcher called Lovachino, regarding payment for a calf ‘d’ottimo qualita’. Following a list of goods and amounts of money in denari and giorgini - presumably in payment for the calf? - the final line reads ‘In order not to forget the above-mentioned please write to me Giacomo Franchi, priest of Pontecchio, to refresh your memory.’
Remnants of leaves pressed between pages. Waterstaining throughout, particularly towards the end of the volume.
OCLC: Yale, Harvard, Cornell. UK: Cambridge.
Edit 16 CNCE 32562.
