L. Coelii Lactantii Firmiani Divinarum institutionum Libri VII. De ira Dei, Liber I. Epitome in libros suos liber acephalos. Phoenix. Carmen de dominica resurrectione. Carmen de passione Domini. (Colophon: Basileae, Apud Andream Cratandrum, mense februario, 1521)
Thick 4to (217x143); [10], 433, [3] pp. Title within large woodcut frame (Hans Holbein the Younger), large woodcut initials, large woodcut printers device on last page. Various marginal notations and manicules throughout. Blind-stamped leather over wooden boards, with remaining clasp anchors present, leather clasps lacking. Hole in upper rear board indicating this volume was once kept in a chained library. Rebacked. Binding nice and tight.
More Information:
On the title page appears for the first time the famous woodcut border depicting "Lucretia and Judith" by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), the famous German-Swiss painter and printmaker, considered one of the greatest portraitists of his century.
The first Cratander edition of Lactantius, “The Christian Cicero”. Front flyleaf contains contemporary ms. additions of scholarly writing embodying quotations from Plato and Quintilian, dated 1522. Rear flyleaf contains 2 Latin poems in apparently the same hand.
Lactantius was advisor to the Roman emperor Constantin I and tutor Constantin's son, Crispus. The De Divinis Institutionibus adversus gentes was written in A.D. 304-13 and is considered his greatest work; it deals with the new religion and thoroughly examines all the arguments then available in its favour.
Provenance: Grolier sale at Swann Galleries, March 17, 1975.
