Lot 79
Plato
Apanta ta sozomena
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
[graece]. Opera quae extant omnia. Ex nova Joannis Serrani interpretatione … Henr. Stephani de quorundam locorum interpretatione judicium, et multorum contextus Graeci emendatio. [Geneva:] excudebat Henr. Stephanus [Henri Estienne the younger], 1578. First edition of the translation by Jean de Serres and first complete edition, 3 volumes, folio (36.8 x 23.8cm), near-contemporary mottled calf, woodcut device on title-page, woodcut headpieces, initials and culs-de-lampe, some marginalia in Greek in an early hand, inscription in Greek dated 1653 repeated to each front free endpaper (with addition in Latin dated 1665 in volume 1), bindings worn, all volumes with some damp-staining to upper margins, corresponding old repairs obscuring a few page numbers and running heads, a little additional damp-staining in places, some very minor marginal worming [Adams P1439; Renouard cols. 145-6; Schreiber 201; USTC 450772]
Provenance
1) Faint early ownership inscriptions to title-pages of volumes one and two, the first apparently reading in part ‘M. Hubert Docteur de Medecine’, the second ‘Hubert d'Orleans D. Med.', possibly Etienne Hubert d'Orleans (1567-1614), French physician and Arabist.
2) ‘Franciscus Sevin’, ownership inscriptions to the title-page of volumes one and three, with later inscriptions ‘ex bibliotecha F. Sevin’ to front pastedowns of each volume, likely to be François Sevin (1682-1741), French philologist and codicologist, who from 1737 to his death was keeper of the king's manuscripts under Louis XV (cf. Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France, shelfmark Z 44 A, for an example of the same ownership inscription, attributed to François Sevin, in a copy of Scheffer, De militia navali veterum, Uppsala, 1654).
Footnote
‘Henri Estienne’s monumental edition of Plato. The first complete edition, which for two centuries remained the indispensable instrument of Platonic studies; to this day its pagination is universally accepted as the standard system of reference to the text of Plato’ (Schreiber). The first edition of the translation by Jean de Serres. The strikingly elaborate large title page device, designed for this work, makes its first and only appearance. The copy is complete with its dedications to Elizabeth I, James VI and the Canton of Bern: their absence is usually the work’s most common defect.