22 - ERASMUS. Adagiorum chiliades tres. Tübingen, Thomas Anshelm for Louis Hornecken, March 1514. Folio, light brown calfskin cold-stamped on board, covers decorated with a pattern of scrolls and fillets, traces of clasps (contemporary binding).

ERASMUS. Adagiorum chiliades tres. Tübingen, Thomas Anshelm for Louis Hornecken, March 1514. Folio, light brown calfskin cold-stamped on board, covers decorated with a pattern of scrolls and fillets, traces of clasps (contemporary binding). A highly regarded and rare edition of Erasmus’s Adages. This educational work, originally published in 1500, was one of the greatest successes of the Rotterdam humanist. This edition brings together 3,260 adages, divided into 3 chiliads, or 3 series of 1,000 adages, plus 260 others that form the beginning of the 4th chiliad; the original edition contained only 820, and the 1536 edition—the year of Erasmus’s death—would include just over 4,000. There are a few old annotations in the margins, and the endpapers are filled with notes in French and Latin regarding the book, dated 1562–1563. A fine copy in a strictly period binding: it is decorated with two different roll patterns, one—used for the outer border—consisting of scrolls of small flowers, while the other, arranged in vertical bands in the center, features an interlaced rope motif. A few worm galleries, which do not interfere with reading; minor marginal water stains in some margins, nothing serious. Some leather loss, particularly at the corners and around the original clasps. Spine very skillfully restored. Wormholes affecting mainly the second cover.