AN UNSOPHISTICATED COPY IN ITS ORIGINAL BINDING, OF THE ATTIC NIGHTS: AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE ROMAN PERIOD

Gellius, Aulus. Auli Gellii luculentissimi scriptoris Noctes Atticae. Lugduni (Lyon): Heirs of Sebastian Gryphius, 1560.

8vo (170x110 mm), contemporary full calf, with five raised bands at spine; pp. [64], 553, [3]. Printer's device on title page and penultimate leaf verso. Initials; printed marginal notes.

Fine Lyon edition of Gellius' Noctes Atticae («Attic Nights»), an encyclopedic work on grammar, geometry, philosophy, history and almost every other branch of knowledge, compiled out of a commonplace book, in which the author had jotted down everything of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in books.

Among the topics contained in the chapters: falling stars and comets, the ancient condition of vestal virgins, pygmies, the Sybillin Books, Zodiacs, wines (of Rhodi, Lesbos and other exotic wines) and food, the Plautus comedies (including news about the most renowned actors of his time), strange or unknown facts of the life of famous men (Pythagoras, Demosthenes, Hannibal, Socrates wife) and a lot of other major and minor topics.

Aulus Gellius (c. 130-180), was a Latin writer and grammarian, probably born at Rome, where he studied grammar and rhetoric. Then, he was scholar of philosophy at Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office. His only survived work, the Noctes Atticae, takes its name from having been begun during the long nights of a winter which he spent in Attica (Greece). Gellius work is specially valuable for the insight it affords into the nature of the society and pursuits of those times, and for the numerous excerpts it contains from the works of lost ancient authors.

References: IT\ICCU\TO0E\020339. OCLC, 43160316, which locates only two copies of this edition in USA (at Princeton University Library and at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign).

A very fine and unsophisticated copy, in its original binding.