Description

[003577] Ausonii, D. Magni; (Ausonius, Decimus Magnus); Floridus, Julianus and Souchay, Joannes-Baptista (Notes etc.) Opera. ill. Mathey. Parisiis (Paris): Jacobi Guerin, 1730. First Thus. 4to. Hardback. Good. lxv, [1], 400, [2], 401-684pp, [2], 1-16pp, [152], contemporary full calf, raised bands, spine in six panels, author/title label to second panel, remaining panels with triple fillet frames, small roundels to corners and central fleuron device, gilt roll to board edges

Chipped to spine ends with small amounts of loss exposing end bands, joints with Japanese paper repairs, rubbed to extremities, corners bumped and worn. Internally lightly browned and lightly foxed, but generally fairly clean

Engraved frontispiece and one engraved plate of nine medallions.

Ausonius was a Roman poet and teacher, born in c.310. Though admired by contemporaries, his poetry is not generally well regarded. Gibbon for example proclaimed that ‘the poetical fame of Ausonius condemns the taste of his age’, but his works have retained interest for other reasons, including references to wine making (he was a native of Bordeaux) and the use of a water mill to cut marble (Wikipedia)

The Delphin edition, with notes by Julien Fleury and Joannes-Baptista Souchay, text in Latin

Schweiger I:22; Moss I:216 and Brunet I:574 describing this as an “edition la plus estimee”