Flavio Giuseppe - Le ANTICHITÀ' GIUDAICHE - 1549

GIOSEFO [Flavio Giuseppe].

From the Antiquities of the Jews. Translated into Italian by M. Pietro Lauro Modenese.
In Venice, at Baldassarre Constantini’s, at the sign of Saint George, 1549.

In-8° (approximately 150 × 110 mm). Pages (6), 303 of(24?), 306, (2) leaves.

A copy of the first volume (Books I–X) of the famous Italian translation of Flavius Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, made by Pietro Lauro from Modena (ca. 1510–1568), one of the most active and prolific Venetian vernacular translators of the sixteenth century.

The work, originally dedicated to the Duchess of Urbino, Leonora Gonzaga della Rovere, narrates the history of the Jewish people from Creation to the era of Esther. It constitutes one of the most important ancient historical sources on Palestine in the I century and contains, among other things, precious references to John the Baptist, to Jesus, and to the early Christians (including the famous Testimonium Flavianum).

Lauro’s translation, based on the Latin text rather than directly on the Greek, appeared for the first time in 1544 at Vincenzo Valgrisi; this edition is one of the first and rare reprints (EDIT16 CNCE 25092). It is accompanied by animated woodcut initials and the printer’s mark of Constantini (caduceus with snakes, dove, and hands issuing from clouds).

Importance and rarity
It is one of the first and most widespread Italian vernacular translations of Josephus, a fundamental text for Jewish and Roman historiography and for Renaissance biblical exegesis. Lauro’s translation enjoyed extraordinary success and was reprinted several times in Venice up to the early seventeenth century, contributing decisively to spreading Josephus’s knowledge to a non-Latinist audience. The 1549 Constantini edition is fairly rare on the market, especially in copies that are only partially complete.

Condition
The original frontispiece is missing (here reproduced by photograph), and some preliminary leaves (*-***1 and 8, p8) as well as some blank leaves are lacking. There are tears and damp stains, especially on the initial leaves; some leaves have ancient restorations to the margins, with no loss of text. Modern reverse binding with cords.

An incomplete copy but of considerable historical-bibliographic interest, representative of mid‑Sixteenth-Century Venetian printing and of the sixteenth-century fortune of one of the most read and consulted classical texts of the modern era.