Olympia-2015

110. TERENCE. Publii Terentii comoediae, ex vetustissimis libris et versuumratione a Gabriele Faerno emendatae. [Heidelberg], ‘In bibliopolio Commeliniano’(i.e. Hieronymus Commelinus Erben), 1607.Two parts in one volume, 8vo, pp. [xvi], 272; 271, [1] (titlepageof part II dated 1587); slightly browned and spotted,some worming (mostly marginal but occasionally affecting aletter or two); contemporary vellum with yapp edges,unidentified gilt arms stamped on covers; ownershipinscription ‘ex lib. Joh. Baptiste Axelij 1646’ on recto of frontflyleaf, and with notes and a donation inscription to theverso reading ‘Libertus van Axele D. D. Jacobo van Axelenepoti carissmo. mense Januario anno 1620’.£900Terence’s six comedies edited by Gabriele Faerno (1510–1561), Italian scholar and poet. His edition of Cicero’sPhilippics appeared shortly after his death, followed in 1565by his Terence, completed by his friend Pietro Vettori andpublished by the Giunti in Florence. Faerno’s text was basedon a collation of surviving manuscripts and was influential, being used, forexample, as the basis for the 1726 edition by Richard Bentley.COPAC records only one copy in the UK (National Library of Scotland, imprintdated 1607). Worldcat adds a copy at the Bibliothèque nationale.111. TIRSO DE MOLINA, pseud. of fray Gabriel TÉLLEZ. Cigarrales de Toledo.Compuesto por el Maestro Tirso de Molina, natural de Madrid. Barcelona,Geronymo Margarit and at the expenses of Iusepe Genovart, 1631.4to, ff. [iii], 215; a fine, crisp copy in contemporary limp vellum, remains of ties;inscription dated 1656 recording the entry of the book in the library of ‘Wolfg.Engelb.S. R. J. Com. ab Aussperg’ on the titlepage, and nineteenth-centurybookplate from the Fürstlich Auerspergsche Fideicommissbibliothek zu Laybach onthe front paste-down; from the collection of Raymond Caizergues. £12,000The Cigarrales is the first extant publication of the Spanish Baroque dramatistTirso de Molina, born Gabriel Téllez. All early editions of the Cigarrales, licensed in1621 but first published in Madrid in 1624, are very rare. This is anexceptionally genuine and well-preserved copy of the third edition, the first toappear in Barcelona.Téllez was ‘the most important disciple of Lope de Vega’ (Ward). The Cigarrales deToledo (‘cigarrales’ being weekend retreats in the countryside near Toledo) ‘takes itsform and some of its anecdotes from Il Decamerone, and shows how a group offriends while away in the summer, each telling a story in his own cigarral’ (ibid.).Boccaccio is not the only source for this miscellany of verse, novels, plays andshort tales: other writers and themes of the Italian Renaissance surface asparadigms in specific pieces.