Cicéron/Brutus - Lettres de Ciceron à Brutus - 1744

[CICERO / BRUTUS]
Letters of Cicero to M. Brutus, and of M. Brutus to Cicero, with a critical preface, notes, and various selected pieces, to serve as a supplement to the History and Character of Cicero.

In Paris, at Didot, Bookseller, Quai des Augustins, at the Golden Bible, 1744.

One volume in small 12mo, bound in full mottled brown calf of the period, spine with raised bands richly adorned with gold-engraved panels featuring floral and vegetal motifs, title label in red morocco. The work is equipped with a title page printed in red and black, adorned with a small engraved typographic vignette, with the king’s approval and privilege. The period binding in mottled calf shows rubbing and wear at the headcaps, joints, and corners, while the interior preserves superb freshness with margins well preserved and the fine clarity of the red and black inks on the title page.

This mid-18th-century Paris edition, issued from the presses of the famous Didot family, offers the cross correspondence between the great Roman orator Cicero and his disciple and friend Brutus. The work is distinguished by its complete critical apparatus, including a thorough preface, explanatory notes, and a selection of subsidiary pieces designed to illuminate the political history of the late Roman Republic as well as Cicero’s psychology.

The correspondence between Cicero and Brutus has long stirred scholars and philologists, some humanists of past centuries even doubting the authenticity of these letters due to the freedom with which Brutus sometimes criticizes his elder’s political hesitations. By publishing this text with a “critical preface” at Didot in 1744, the Enlightenment scholars seized these republican debates to reflect on concepts of liberty, tyranny, and civic engagement, at a time when ancient thought served as a mirror to the political aspirations of the eighteenth century.

Fine copy.