Ovidio - Metamorphoseon - 1670

The Great Western Book of Changes: The universe according to the most ironic of poets
An edition of extraordinary finesse, this splendid volume of the Opera Omnia of Publius Ovidius Naso, printed in Lugdunum Batavorum in 1670 by the Hackiana workshop, gathers the fifteen books of Metamorphoses in a form that transforms mythological poetry into allegorical vision. The full-page engravings illustrate the most famous passages of the poem, conveying the symbolic power of metamorphosis as a cosmic principle: the universe in perpetual change, matter becoming image, words turning into form. The Hackiana edition, one of the most refined of the Dutch 17th century, venerates Ovid as a poet of light and eternal transformation.
Market value
The Hackiana editions of Ovid's Opera Omnia, particularly the volume dedicated to the Metamorphoses, are among the most appreciated by scholars and collectors of illustrated classical texts. Complete copies, in contemporary parchment binding, are currently valued on the antiquarian market between 1,200 and 2,000 euros, with higher prices for specimens in excellent condition, with clear plates and full margins. This copy, intact, fresh, with precisely inked plates, falls within the high-value range.

Physical description and condition - collector's copy
Contemporary binding in full stiff parchment with handwritten title on the spine: Opera Omnia. Typographic frontispiece in elegant Roman type, numerous full-page plates depicting mythological episodes from the Metamorphoses. Normal signs of use, some marginal staining. Pages (2); 806; 10 unnumbered pages; (4).
In ancient books with a centuries-old history, some imperfections may be present, which are not always noted in the description.

Full title and author
Metamorphosis.
Lugdunum, Ex Officina Hackiana, 1670.
Publications of Ovid of Naso

Context and Significance
The Hackiana workshop, one of the most prestigious of the Dutch Seicento, continued Elzevier's tradition in printing Latin classics, offering philologically accurate texts adorned with baroque-style engravings. This edition of the Metamorphoses stands out for its balance between typographic elegance and iconographic splendor. The plates, of the Dutch school, are not mere illustrations but true figurative dramas: they depict in image the exact moment of transformation, the threshold between human and divine, matter and spirit.
Ovid's poem, in this guise, becomes a manual of poetic alchemy, a journey through the stages of transformation that unites the universe and reveals the continuity of all forms.

Biography of the Author
Publius Ovidius Naso (Sulmona, 43 BC – Tomi, 17 AD), a Latin poet of extraordinary refinement, was the author of Metamorphoses, Amores, Heroides, Ars Amatoria, and Tristia. His poetry, elegant and learned, blends mythology and introspection, eroticism and philosophy of destiny. Exiled by Augustus for reasons not clarified, he transformed personal experience into an art of memory and desire. The Metamorphoses, written in hexameters, represent the summation of his thought: reality as a flow of forms, life as perpetual transfiguration.

Printing history and circulation
The Hackian edition of 1670 fits into the great Dutch tradition of Latin classics, inaugurated by the Elzeviers and rigorously continued by Hackius. The Metamorphoses are highly appreciated for their rich illustrative apparatus and the elegance of the typographic character. The edition was distributed throughout Europe, often included in the aristocratic and academic libraries of the North, and became a model for the reprints in Leiden and The Hague in the early eighteenth century.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Brunet IV, 237; Graesse V, 108; Schweiger, Handbook of Classical Bibliography, II, 666; Willems, Les Elzevier, p. 486 (note on the Hackiana workshop); Moss, Manual of Classical Bibliography, II, p. 417; Gaskell, Dutch Printing and Bookmaking, 1968; BnF Rés. P-Y 3945; Ovid, Opera Omnia, Hackiana 1670, WorldCat OCLC 45834592.