Lot 91
Greek historians
Collection of folio editions, 17th-18th century
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
Herodotus. Istorion [in Greek]. Historiarum libri ix … Editionem curavit et suas itemque Lud. Casp. Valckenarii, notas adjecit Petrus Wesselingius. Amsterdam: sumptibus Petri Schoutenii, 1763. Folio (40.5 x 24cm), contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label, [24] 868 177 [69] pp., half-title, engraved additional title-page, engraved folding plate (facing p. 166), with a laid-in foolscap bifolium (31.8 x 19.6cm) containing 2 pages of manuscript notes on Herodotus's account of the Egyptians and ancient weights and measures (e.g. ‘Among the nomades in Lybia there is a wild beast of the bigness of an ox, called orys: from the length of whose horns the Phoenicians took the length of their cubit’), apparently by James Stirling (1692-1770), damp-staining to front free endpaper and half-title;
Thucydides. Peri tou Peloponnesiakou polemou biblia okto [in Greek]. De bello Peloponnesiaco libri octo … recensuit, et notas suas addidit Josephus Wasse. Editionem curavit, suasque animadversiones adjecit Carolus Andreas Dukerus. Amsterdam: apud R. & J. Wetstenious et Gul. Smith, 1731. Folio (39.6 x 23.5cm), contemporary calf, gilt spine [36] 34 1-728 48 123 pp., half-title, engraved frontispiece, title-page printed in red and black with engraved vignette, 2 engraved folding maps, Greek and Latin text in parallel columns, spine-label perished, small worm-track to lower margins of last few leaves;
Pausanias. Tes Ellados Periegesis [in Greek]. Hoc est, Graeciae descriptio accurata … accesserunt Gul. Xylandri et Frid. Sylburgii annotationes, ac novae notae Joachimi Kuhnii. Leipzig: apud Thomam Fritsch, 1696. Folio (33.5 x 19.8cm), contemporary sprinkled calf, spine gilt in compartments, marbled edges, [28] 895 pp., 899-943 columns, [76] pp., half-title, title-page in red and black with engraved vignette of Pegasus, Greek and Latin text in parallel columns, closed tear in V1, small section of worming in text from about p. 860, index browned [either VD17 39:128725Q or VD17 547:697701A, each with the same collation but apparently with the figure of Pegasus looking down or straight ahead respectively, the distinction unclear in practice]; and 1 other (4)