ÉLIEN LE SOPHISTE (Claude Ælien, dit).

Variæ historiæ libri XIIII. Item rerum publicarum descriptiones ex Heraclide. [Geneva], Jean de Tournes, 1587. In-16, red morocco, triple gilt fillet, coat of arms in the centre in a gilt laurel medallion, spine decorated with fillets and a repeated figure, gilt edges, modern green cloth box (Parisian binding of the time). Very fine edition printed in Geneva for John II of Tournes of the varied History of Elian († 235), Greek-speaking Roman historian, zoologist and orator. Of the fourteen books that originally made up the work, only fragments have survived, in which the author compiles anecdotes taken from various ancient authors, such as Aristotle, Pliny, Ctesias, on a wide variety of subjects. Thus, the collection begins with: "Octopuses have an amazing stomach and are unbeatable in their ability to swallow anything." Elian then goes on to discuss the weaving of clothes and then the frogs of Egypt. The work is worthwhile mainly for its preservation of authors since lost. The present edition, based on the one published by Gesner in Zurich, uses the Greco-Latin version of Justus Vultejus (1529-1575) given in the editio princeps of the work, printed in Rome in 1545, to which it joins the fragmentary corpus of the Constitutions attributed to Heraclius of Pontus. Beautiful two-column printing, in Greek and Roman characters, decorated with an arabesque frame to the title, with lettering and bands at the head of the fourteen books and with the mark of Jean de Tournes on the last leaf. A precious copy in red morocco with the arms and figures of Jacques-Auguste de Thou and his first wife, Marie Barbançon. Magistrate, statesman, jurist, historian, humanist and bibliophile, Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553-1617) is one of the most important figures among the book collectors of his time. The scholarly and encyclopaedic library he had assembled from the collection of his father, Christophe de Thou, with around a thousand manuscripts and eight thousand printed volumes, remained unrivalled in Paris until the mid-17th century. A working tool for the historian and jurist (de Thou is notably the author of an important History in sixteen volumes), his library was also open to scholars, humanists and students from France and abroad. Very demanding about the condition of his books, de Thou had them bound with the greatest care, first in vellum, then in red, lemon, green or purple morocco, of the finest quality, stamped with his coat of arms, to which he had the coat of arms of Marie de Barbançon-Cany, his wife, added after his first marriage in 1587, and then after his second marriage in 1602, those of Gasparde de La Chastre, his second wife. On the death of President de Thou, the library, entrusted to the Dupuy brothers, guards of the king's library, was further expanded by François-Auguste de Thou and his brother Jacques-Auguste II, so much so that in 1679 it contained some 30,000 works when it passed by inheritance to the abbot Jacques-Auguste de Thou, who had the catalogue published under the title Catalogus Bibliothecæ Thuanæ, with a view to its sale at auction. However, from the very first auction, Jean-Jacques Charron, Marquis de Ménars, Colbert's brother-in-law, decided to buy the entire library and combine it with his own. In 1706, he sold the entire collection to Cardinal Armand-Gaston de Rohan, who bequeathed it to his nephew, Charles de Rohan-Soubise. With these successive additions, the library, rich in fifty thousand volumes, was finally dispersed at auction in 1789. Described in the Catalogus Bibliothecæ Thuanæ of 1679 (I, 279), the present volume was not, however, included in the Rohan-Soubise sale of 1789. In fact, at the end of the 17th century, it belonged to the scholar Antoine Vyon d'Hérouval (1606-1689), whose signature it bears on the title. This prestigious copy was then in the libraries of Charles Giraud (1855, I, n°3272); Mme Théophile Belin (Paris, I, 1936, n°55); Raoul-Édouard Cartier (1974, n°36), with ex-libris; and Michel Wittock (2005, III, n°18), with ex-libris. The copy is reproduced in the volume of Musea nostra devoted to the Bibliotheca Wittockiana (1996, p. 41). Minor restorations to the corners and hinges, some yellowed leaves. Cartier, n°665 - Adams, A-220 - Gültlingen, IX, 255, n°710 - Moeckli, 120 - GLN-3245 - OHR, n°217.