Description
Heliodorus. Historiae aethiopicae libri decem, nunquam antea in lucem editi
Basle, ex officina Hervagiana, 1534.
small 4to (211 x 150 mm. – very wide margins). [8], 242, [2] p., dedicatory epistle by Opsopaeus in Latin, otherwise Greek letter, printer’s device on title and verso of last leaf, white on black initials, four illustrating lovers embracing, some very extensive early marginalia in Greek and Latin, though only on a few pages (and possibly done before the book was bound?), very faint stain on title and in lower margins of a few leaves, but an exceptionally fine clean copy, modest but interesting contemporary binding, calf, two double blind-stamped frames with gilt floral corner-pieces, central gilt ornament (that on upper cover applied slightly askew), gilt ornaments in five compartments of spine, old repairs to hinges and corners.
EDITIO PRINCEPS. Adams H-174; VD16 H1673; Hoffmann II, 197; Brunet III, 87. The first European novel? A picaresque love story, beginning and ending in Ethiopia, but going via Delphi and Egypt: used by Tasso and Cervantes, admired by Racine. Heliodorus was born in Syria, late 5th century AD, converted to Christianity and became a bishop: but this was surely written before his conversion. The MS was found at the sack of Buda in 1526, in the library of Matthias Corvinus (how did it get there?), so it reached print quite promptly
The book is not rare, but it is unusual to find a first printing of a Classical text still on the market which has escaped rebinding by an 18th or 19th century collector.