[Rarebooks] fa: DE SESTERTIO, TALENTIS, PECUNIIS [etc.] - LEONARDUS DE PORTIS 1520

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

On eBay now, ending Sunday, Jan. 25. More details and photos can be  
found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZarch_in_la

Many thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

The FIRST PRINTED WORK on ANCIENT WEIGHTS, MEASURES & COINAGE

Leonardi Portii [aka Leonardus de Portis, or Portius, Leonardo Porzio]  
Jurisconsulti Vicentini: De Sestertio, Talentis, Pecuniis, Ponderibus,  
Me[n]suris, Stipendiis militaribus antiquis, ac prouinciaru[m], regum,  
populi Romani Cæsaru[m]q[ue] redditibus, libri duo, in quibus  
co[m]plura loca scriptoru[m] clariss. Plinii, Columellæ, Celsi, Livii,  
Iuuenalis, tum acri iudicio, tum exquisitiori doctrina castigantur,  
aperiuntur, illustrantur. Præterea additus est index rerum &  
uerboru[m], quae hoc in opere digniora scitu uisa sunt. [Basel]: Joan.  
Frob. [Johann Froben], [c1520]. First or early edition. Hardcover 8vo  
(21 x14 cm) in modern boards with printed spine label; [4] + 62 + [6]  
pp.; with Froben's woodcut printer's device on title-page, repeated on  
verso of final leaf, and woodcut historiated initials.

One of the two earliest printings of "the earliest printed work on the  
ancient measures of length, weight and value" (Smithsonian:  
"Incunabula From the Dibner Library of the History of Science and  
Technology"). According to the OCLC catalog entry for BYU's copy of  
the book, this Froben edition was "issued simultaneously with an  
undated Venice edition, which was long believed to be an incunable  
(see Goff P943). Internal and external evidence show both printed ca.  
1520." More commonly found are the later Rome edition of 1524 and a  
Froben reissue of 1530. This work by Leonardus de Portis, a lawyer of  
Vicenza, caused something of a dust-up in early 16th-century scholarly  
circles. Guillaume Budé had published a similar work, De asse et  
Partibus, in 1515 and accused Portis of plagiarism. Portis's editor  
Egnazio claimed that De Sestertio had existed in manuscript as early  
as 1511. The controversy grew to include Erasmus, Cipelli, Janus, and  
Froben.

Early/contemporary ink signature of "Franciscus Faber" on the title- 
page, with his occasional marks in the margins, very mild age-toning  
to the leaves, otherwise exceedingly clean and fresh in a somewhat  
soiled and bumped modern binding chipped at the spine head; slight  
pulling to the gutter between the final colophon leaf and the rest of  
the text block, but all pages are secure and firmly bound. (A small,  
inaccurate and irrelevant 20th-century bookseller's catalog entry,  
describing a non-existent later edition with woodcuts, has been  
affixed to the front paste-down.) Overall, very nice example of a  
scarce, nearly 500 year-old landmark of early printing, one of the  
books listed in <i>The Making of the Modern World: The Goldsmiths'- 
Kress Library of Economic Literature 1450-1850</i>. Worldcat/OCLC  
locates only 3 copies in U.S. libraries (BYU, UKs, UMaryland).