Cicerone - Opera - 1724

CICERON ON THE WETSTEIN EDITION AS A PHILOLOGICAL MACHINE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT
This volume of Cicero’s works, printed in Amsterdam in 1724 by the Wetsteins and curated by Isaacus Verburgius, belongs to one of the most ambitious editorial ventures of modern philology. Placed in the vast “Series Operum,” the volume testifies to the eighteenth‑century desire to master the classical tradition through order, arrangement, and critical comparison. The continuous pagination, which traverses the entire series, makes the volume part of a unitary, almost encyclopedic organism, in which Cicero’s thought is reconstructed as a coherent system. The book is not merely a container of texts, but an intellectual instrument: a workshop where the voice of antiquity is filtered, corrected, and made newly authoritative for Enlightenment Europe.
MARKET VALUE
Individual volumes of the Wetstein series (1724), complete, generally fetch between 300 and 400 euros on the antiquarian market; the presence of an engraved half-title and good structural preservation, as in the present case, support a valuation in the higher end.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary binding in stiff vellum parchment, with leather spine label and gold-tooled title. Tenth volume belonging to the “Series Operum,” with a red and black title page and a figured copper-engraved frontispiece depicting a philosophical teaching scene. Text in Latin with critical apparatus, scholia, and systematic indication of variants. Internal pagination organized by works (e.g., De Officiis, Cato Maior, Laelius, Paradoxa Stoicorum, etc.). Paper with natural browning and brown spotting. In ancient books, with a multisecular history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 8nn; 710; (4).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Opera quae supersunt
Amstelaedami, apud Rod. & Gerh. Wetstenios, 1724.
M. Tullii Ciceronis.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
The tenth volume of this edition represents an advanced section of the collection, inserted in a publishing system aiming to reconstruct the entire Cicero corpus according to modern philological criteria. Verburgius works on a stratified tradition, integrating the lessons of Renaissance editors with a more systematic and comparative approach. The continuity of pagination across the volumes emphasizes a unitary conception of the work, which transcends the single volume to configure itself as a great building of classical knowledge. The inclusion of ancient commentators and scholia transforms the text into a dialogic space, where Cicero’s voice intertwines with centuries of interpretations. In this sense, the volume perfectly embodies the Enlightenment ideal of order, rationality, and the critical transmission of knowledge.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE) was one of the greatest orators and thinkers of Republican Rome. Active in political and judicial life, he developed a vast literary production that includes orations, rhetorical treatises, philosophical works, and moral writings. Through his writings he contributed decisively to the diffusion of Greek culture in the Latin world and became an indispensable model for European humanistic education.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Cicero’s works were among the most widely read in the history of Western printing, from incunabula to the great Renaissance editions in Venice and Paris. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Netherlands became a fundamental center of classical philology, with editors like the Wetsteins producing critical editions destined for an international scholarly audience. The 1724 series represents a consolidating phase of this tradition, characterized by scientific rigor and wide circulation in European libraries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU/OPAC SBN: identification to be verified for the specific volume (Series Operum, vol. X, Amsterdam 1724)
WorldCat: Cicero, Opera, Wetstein, 1724 (multiple records for individual tomes)
Brunet, Manuel du libraire, II, pp. 27–35 (Cicéron, Dutch editions)
Graesse, Trésor de livres rares, II, pp. 129–135
Harwood, View of the Various Editions of the Greek and Roman Classics, pp. 138–145
Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship, vol. II, pp. 350–360