Gellius - [Post Incunable] Noctium Atticarum - 1517

LOST FRAGMENTS OF ANTIQUITY: THE NIGHT OF THE HUMANISTS
Elegant sixteenth-century edition, in Folio, of Aulus Gellius’s Noctes Atticae, printed in Strasbourg in 1517 by Johann Knobloch, a prominent figure in disseminating Latin classics in the Rhineland area. The volume, enriched by a red and black title page within an architectural frame and by numerous decorative initials rubricated in red and blue, testifies to the extraordinary humanist fortune of one of the texts most loved by Renaissance scholars. An work of extraordinary thematic variety, the Noctes Atticae gathers grammatical, philosophical, historical, antiquarian, and legal observations, constituting for centuries a real mine of quotations and fragments of classical authors. The copy is particularly interesting for the presence of ancient-hand Latin postills, a concrete sign of the reading and philological use of the text in the humanist circles of the sixteenth century.
MARKET VALUE
Humanistic editions of Aulus Gellius from the early decades of the sixteenth century, especially those produced in the editorial centers of the Rhineland area and accompanied by contemporaneous manuscript annotations, are consistently valued in the antiquarian market. Copies with ancient marginalia often represent direct testimonies of Renaissance philological practice. A volume like this generally ranks in a range between 2,500 and 3,000 euros, with variations tied to the freshness of the paper, completeness, and the interest of the manuscript annotations.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Later binding in parchment. Title page printed in red and black within an architectural typographical frame, numerous decorative initials rubricated in red and blue. Presence of numerous ancient manuscript Latin postills in the margins of the text. Pages with some browning, water stains, and small wormholes. There is also a vertical fold affecting many quires of the volume. Overall, a structurally solid and legible copy. Folio. Pages (2); 20 leaves; 210; 54 leaves; (2).
In old books, with a multigenerational history, a few imperfections may be present that are not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Noctium Atticarum libri undeviginti.
Argentinae, Ioannis Knoblouchi, 1517.
Aulus Gellius.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The Noctes Atticae, composed in the 2nd century A.D., are a miscellany of erudite notes drafted by Aulus Gellius during his stays in Attica. The work gathers literary, grammatical, philosophical, and legal discussions, often in the form of short chapters devoted to linguistic curiosities, quotations from ancient authors, or questions of philological interpretation.

In the Renaissance the text acquired a central role in the training of humanists, as it preserved numerous fragments of Latin and Greek authors that are today lost or transmitted only through this collection. The Noctes Atticae thus became a fundamental working tool for grammarians, jurists, and philologists. The presence of manuscript annotations in the present copy testifies to this function: the book was not merely an object of reading, but a true laboratory of study and comparison with the classical tradition.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Aulus Gellius (2nd century A.D.) was a Latin writer and grammarian, likely active during the reign of Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. His main work, the Noctes Atticae, is an encyclopedic collection of erudite observations spanning Latin language, philosophy, Roman law, history, and Greek literature. Thanks to its extraordinary wealth of quotations, the text remains a fundamental source for the knowledge of many ancient authors.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The Noctes Atticae were among the most reprinted classical texts from the late 15th century to the 16th century. The 1517 edition, printed in Strasbourg by Johann Knobloch, fits into the lively Renaissance humanist production of the Rhineland area, which decisively contributed to the diffusion of Latin classics in Northern Europe. Knobloch’s editions are today valued for their typographic quality and for the crucial role they played in the scholarly circulation of ancient texts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
VD16, Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae, Argentinae 1517 (specific number to be verified).
Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe 1501–1600, G-379 (for editions of Aulus Gellius from the early sixteenth century).
USTC, Universal Short Title Catalogue, records relating to Gellius editions printed in Strasbourg in the early sixteenth century.
ICCU / OPAC SBN, locations of copies preserved in Italian libraries.
Repertories on Rhineland typography of the sixteenth century and on the production of Johann Knobloch.