Plinio il Vecchio - Historiae Mundi - 1561

PLINIUS THE ELDER: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE ANCIENT WORLD IN A MONUMENTAL LYON EDITION
An extraordinary Renaissance edition of Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia, one of the most influential scientific works of the entire Western civilization. Printed in Lyon in 1561, this imposing collection of the 37 books preserves the knowledge of antiquity on nature, astronomy, geography, medicine, botany, zoology, mineralogy, and art. Edited by the renowned humanists Johannes Nicolaus Victorius and Sigmund Gelenius, it presents a philologically correct text and a vast independent index. A prestigious folio volume of almost a thousand pages, testament to the great European editorial era of the sixteenth century.

ABSTRACT
A large and uncommon Lyonese edition of 1561 of Gaio Plinio Secondo’s Naturalis Historia, known as Pliny the Elder (23–79 A.D.), published at Jean Frellon and printed by Symphorien Barbier, with philological input from Johannes Nicolaus Victorius and Sigmund Gelenius. The work gathers all 37 books of the widest scientific encyclopedia handed down from Roman antiquity, an intellectual achievement embracing astronomy, cosmology, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, agriculture, pharmacology, mineralogy, and the history of art. Pliny describes the known universe through thousands of observations, tales, and testimonies drawn from Greco-Latin tradition. This edition is distinguished by its careful textual revision, comparison with ancient manuscripts, marginal corrections, and the extensive apparatus for consultation. Of particular importance is the presence of the Index Copiosissimus, endowed with its own frontispiece, an essential tool for navigating the immense variety of subjects treated. The large format, the elegant printer’s mark, and the solid editorial structure testify to the cultural ambition of the great humanist printers of the sixteenth century.

WHY TO BUY
One of the foundational works in the history of science and Western culture, offered here in a monumental Renaissance edition of large format. The main reason for interest lies in the completeness of the 37 books and in the important philological work undertaken by the humanist editors, who sought to restore a text more faithful through comparison with ancient manuscripts and earlier editions. The copy retains both frontispieces, the extensive final index, and some sixteenth-century handwritten annotations attesting to its use by ancient readers. Particularly attractive are the large printer’s mark with the motto “Matura,” the decorated initials, the still-strong and crisp paper, and the nineteenth-century binding with raised spine and gold tooling. Traces of ancient decorations on the edges add another element of bibliological interest. A significant volume for collectors of sixteenth-century incunabula, natural history, ancient medicine, Renaissance science, and major Latin classics. The monumental physical presence of the work also enhances its display and bibliographic value.

MARKET VALUE
Naturalis Historia is a classic of the international antique market, with prices significantly varying by printing year, publisher, completeness, condition, and presence of critical apparatus. Sixteenth-century folio editions, especially if complete and published by important European workshops, maintain solid collectible interest. For this Lyon edition of 1561, a retail approximate commercial estimate can place it in the range of 1,500–2,500 euros for a complete and well-preserved copy.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Nineteenth-century half-leather binding with gold-impressed titles, ornaments, and fillets on the spine, four raised bands, rigid boards covered in marbled paper. Traces of ancient decorations on the three edges. Two distinct frontispieces, both with a printer’s mark depicting a crab and a butterfly within an architectural frame. Engraved initials and some seventeenth-century handwritten annotations. Wear to the binding. Very small gap repaired on the frontispiece. Some pages yellowed, others with light stains and foxing. Presence of several wormholes. In old books with a centuries-long history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. This listing contains AI Visuals. Refer to the original photographs to verify the object’s actual condition. Images are an integral part of the description. Collation: (36); 679; (1); (70); (1); (185); (3).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Caius Plinius Secundus.
Historiae Mundi libri XXXVII.
Lugduni, apud Ioannem Frellonium, 1561.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Naturalis Historia represents one of the most ambitious intellectual projects of antiquity. Composed in the 1st century A.D., during the Roman Empire, it is an unprecedented attempt to gather in a single work the knowledge available about the natural world and human activities. Pliny envisions nature as a universal system, in which every phenomenon, from stars to plants, from animals to minerals, has a place in the structure of the cosmos. The early books address cosmology and geography of the known world; followed by treatises on man, animals, plants and their medicinal properties, up to minerals, metals, gemstones, and the arts. Particularly famous are Books XXXIV–XXXVII, which preserve essential information on sculpture, painting, and artistic techniques of antiquity, sometimes not transmitted by other sources. During the Middle Ages the work was a respected reference for scholars, physicians, and compilers of encyclopedias. With the Renaissance and the invention of printing, Pliny gained new fortune: Renaissance philologists compared manuscripts, correcting errors accumulated through centuries of transmission. The Lyonese edition of 1561 fits fully into this cultural movement, offering a text supplemented by variants, corrections, and consultation tools. It marks the shift from knowledge inherited from antiquity to its systematic critical revision, one of the foundations of modern scientific culture.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Gaius Plinius Secundus, universally known as Pliny the Elder, was born in Como in 23 or 24 A.D. and died in 79 A.D. during the eruption of Vesuvius. He was a soldier, imperial administrator, naturalist, and Roman writer, characterized by extraordinary intellectual curiosity. He served in the army and held important public positions, dedicating his leisure to the study and systematic collection of information. His major work, Naturalis Historia, is the only one of his writings to have survived intact. To compose it, he used a vast amount of Greek and Latin sources, reporting information from hundreds of authors. He commanded the Roman fleet stationed at Misenum when, in August or October 79 A.D., the catastrophic eruption of Vesuvius occurred. Prompted initially by scientific curiosity and later by a desire to aid threatened populations, he reached the eruption area, where he died. The circumstances are recalled in the famous letters of his nephew, Pliny the Younger, addressed to the historian Tacitus. Sigmund Gelenius (1497–1554), one of the text’s editors, was an important Bohemian humanist and philologist, a collaborator of Basel’s publishing milieu, particularly known for work on Greek and Latin classics. Johannes Nicolaus Victorius contributed to the Renaissance humanistic tradition of revision and commentary of ancient texts.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Naturalis Historia belongs to the first great scientific texts of antiquity disseminated through printing. The first typographic edition appeared in Venice in 1469, published by Johann von Speyer, inaugurating a long series of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century editions. During the sixteenth century the text was repeatedly published in the main European editorial centers, including Venice, Basel, Paris, and Lyon. The 1561 edition, produced for Jean Frellon and printed by Symphorien Barbier, belongs to the prestigious Lyonese printing tradition, which played a fundamental role in the diffusion of Latin classics and scientific literature. The title explicitly underscores the ambition to correct the numerous alterations introduced by previous impressions, through comparison with ancient codices and with interpretations by authoritative scholars. The marginal castigationes (edits) allow following philological interventions, while the Index Copiosissimus represents a particularly significant consultation tool for an encyclopedia of such breadth. The use of a second frontispiece for the index underlines its editorial autonomy. The crab and butterfly mark and the motto “Matura” recall the humanistic ideal of thoughtful and controlled speed, a concept akin to the famous motto festina lente. The original print run is not precisely documented. The survival of complete, large-format copies with preserved indices and original typographic features is a noteworthy element for the history of European scientific publishing.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
The Lyonese edition of 1561 constitutes a significant testimony to the sixteenth-century editorial tradition of Naturalis Historia, a fundamental work for the history of natural sciences and classical philology. Particularly noteworthy are the text revision attributed to Victorius and Gelenius, the marginal corrections, the double frontispiece, and the presence of the extensive autonomous index. The publication underscores Lyon’s role as a center of production and distribution of major classical works of antiquity during the Renaissance. Seventeenth-century handwritten annotations and traces of ancient decorations on the edges provide further elements for studying provenance and the physical history of the specimen. For definitive bibliographic identification of the edition and possible editorial variants, it is advisable to compare signatures, frontispieces, and colophon with copies cataloged in European historical libraries.