[Early Printing - Post-incunabula - Aldus Manutius] [Latin Classics] [Ancient History - Greece, Asia Minor, Persia, India]
[Military History - Ancient] [Biographies - Alexander the Great]
Printed at Venice: House of Aldus Manutius and Andrea of Asola, July 1520. First Aldine Edition.
Edited by Francesco Torresani; dedicated to Maffeo Leoni. (Renouard notes two variants of this edition, one with the name Curtius misspelled \"Cutius\" on title-page, and another with Curtius spelled correctly; the present example has the title in its 1st state with the \'R\' stamped in.)
\"Sehr seltene Ausgabe.\" (Schweiger)
\"A very scarce and beautiful edition.\" (Moss)
We are pleased to offer a complete, well-margined and well-preserved example of one of the rarest specimens of the celebrated Aldine press. This is the only Aldine edition of the classic 1st-century A.D. account of the life and exploits of Alexander the Great, \"the only extant Latin monograph on Alexander the Great, [and] in many respects the most complete and liveliest account of Alexander’s exploits in Asia.\" (Encyclopædia Iranica)
\"This edition, the only one of Q. Curtius which was printed in the office of Aldus, and in the compilation of which various MSS. were consulted, is rather rare.\" (Dibdin, An Introduction to the Knowledge Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics, II, p.373)
Curtius Rufus\'s history of Alexander the Great originally comprised ten books, \"of which the first two are lost. The extant books start in 333 BC with Alexander\'s march through Phrygia and the cutting of the Gordian knot. The narrative is dramatic and rhetorical, but founded on good sources [...]. He lays stress upon Alexander\'s gradual moral deterioration.\" (M. Howatson, The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature)
Alexander the Great (356 - 323 BC), who led the Macedonian army to victory in Egypt, Syria, Persia and India, was perhaps the most successful conqueror the world has ever seen. Yet although no other individual has attracted so much speculation across the centuries, Alexander himself remains an enigma.
Written with dramatic flair, Curtius\' History offers a great deal of information unobtainable from other sources of the time. A compelling narrative of a turbulent era, the work recounts events on an epic scale, detailing court intrigue, stirring speeches and brutal battles - among them, those of Macedonia\'s great war with Persia, which was to culminate in Alexander\'s final triumph over King Darius and the defeat of an ancient and mighty empire. It also provides by far the most plausible and haunting portrait of Alexander we possess: a brilliantly realized image of a man ruined by constant good fortune in his youth.
De rebus gestis Alexandri Magni had the History of Alexander of Cleitarchus (a contemporary of Alexander) as its main source. Despite certain errors, Curtius\' history is a truly fascinating book, which focuses on Alexander\'s psychological development from a brilliant young conqueror to a paranoid despot. Originally, the History of Alexander consisted of ten books, and although the work was very popular in the Middle Ages (it is known from more than a hundred manuscripts), the first two books are now lost. (They contained the events between the accession of Alexander and the death of the Persian commander Memnon of Rhodes.) The extant manuscripts start when the Macedonian army marched through Phrygia, in the spring of 333 BC; the last book ends with the burial of Alexander\'s body in a golden sarcophagus, which was later brought to Egypt (321 BC).
\"Although it should be borne in mind that Curtius Rufus wrote as a Roman for a Roman public and therefore exhibited the common Roman weakness of looking down on foreign peoples, he was one of the few Latin authors to take a genuine interest in the customs and civilization of the peoples he was describing. Examples include his remarks on Persian customs, his extensive description of the Persian army on the move, and his impressive and lively picture of the \"Parapanisadae\" in the Hindu Kush and the Indi. He also provided independent information, including Persian words (e.g., gaza, \"treasure\", in 3.12.27, 3.13.5; tigris, \"arrow\", in 4.9.16), and his work is one of the major Latin sources for Iranian names. The value of Curtius Rufus’ work to the historian of Persia during the conquest of Alexander lies in two features: On one hand, he provided a different point of view on events reported by Arrian, and, on the other, he included details to be found in no other source.\" (Encyclopædia Iranica)
Of the author, Quintus Curtius Rufus little is known. He is generally identified with Curtius Rufus (died 53 AD), a Roman professional magistrate of senatorial rank, mentioned by Tacitus and Pliny the Younger in context of events occurring during the reigns of the emperors Tiberius and Claudius. According to Tacitus (Annales 11):
\"Of the birth of Curtius Rufus, whom some affirm to have been the son of a gladiator, I would not publish a falsehood, while I shrink from telling the truth. On reaching manhood he attached himself to a quaestor to whom Africa had been allotted, and was walking alone at midday in some unfrequented arcade in the town of Adrumetum, when he saw a female figure of more than human stature, and heard a voice, \'Thou, Rufus, art the man who will one day come into this province as proconsul.\' Raised high in hope by such a presage, he returned to Rome, where, through the lavish expenditure of his friends and his own vigorous ability, he obtained the quaestorship, and, subsequently, in competition with well-born candidates, the praetorship, by the vote of the emperor Tiberius, who threw a veil over the discredit of his origin, saying, \'Curtius Rufus seems to me to be his own ancestor.\' Afterwards, throughout a long old age of surly sycophancy to those above him, of arrogance to those beneath him, and of moroseness among his equals, he gained the high office of the consulship, triumphal distinctions, and, at last, the province of Africa. There he died, and so fulfilled the presage of his destiny.\"
Bibliographic references:
Renouard, p. 88 (1); Adams C-3120; Ahmanson-Murphy 186; Brunet III, 448; Dibdin, Greek and Latin Classics, II, p.373; Schweiger II, p.317; Moss, A Manual of Classical Bibliography, II, 547; Graesse III, 310.
Physical description:
Octavo; 162 mm x 95 mm. Bound in fine 19th-century full Italian vellum gilt (boards with gilt ruled and tooled borders; flat spine decorated in gilt and with red and black gilt-lettered morocco labels). Silk bookmark (striped pink and blue) attached; marbled endpapers; all edges dyed teal.
Foliated: [8], 170, [2] leaves (forming 360 pages).
Collation: *8 a-x8 y4.
COMPLETE, including internal blank *8.
Printed in italic letter (Type: I1:79). Woodcut Aldine device on title page and on verso of the final leaf.
Verso of title blank, followed by the dedicatory epistle by Francesco Torresani to Maffeo Leoni (leaves *2r-*4r) and Index (*4v-*7v).
At the end of the volume are a letter to the reader (x8v), errata (y1r-y2r); colophon and register on y3r (verso blank), and Aldine device on y4v (recto blank).
Provenance:
\"Bouchard Libraire, 69 Place d\'Espagne à Rome\" - 18th- or 19th-century bookseller\'s ticket on front pastedown.
From the collection of Kenneth Rapoport, a notable modern American collector of early books - his ex-libris bookplate on front pastedown.
Faded early (16th or 17th-century) ownership inscriptions to title-page of Italian ecclesiastical institutions (possibly Jesuits).
Condition:
Very Good+ antiquarian condition. Complete, including inner blank. Binding with light sunning to top of rear board, but exceedingly fresh clean and crisp. Title-page (*1) with a couple of faded early ownership inscriptions and with a bit of (quite harmless) fraying to fore-edge. Some scattered minor spotting, and light soiling. In all a remarkably clean, tall and attractive example of this rare Aldine in a pleasing binding.
Please click on thumbnails below to see larger images.
