Aesopi Phrygis et Aliorum Fabulae

Abstract

I found this little treasure during a break in Renard meetings in Turin. The bookstore owner had not been aware of it, but recognized it promptly when I found it and was even able to look up on the spot a published list of Remondini Venice publications. The list (a xeroxed page is with the book) clearly shows an edition of this book done in 1757. Apparently this publishing house specialized in portable books to be sold by men who walked with them on their backs through northern Italy and Switzerland. Bodemann lists as #64.2 a Remondini edition with this title done in 1743 in Bassano. This Venice/Bassano book may well be a later printing of that 1743 book. Someone wrote 1757 at the bottom of this title-page. See Bodemann #64.1 for a full listing of all that is contained in the 1623 Brescia edition with this title. The book begins with a list of authors included and turns next to Planudes' Life of Aesop (5-50, not illustrated). Then come selections from Aphthonius and Hermogenes on fable and a dedicatory epistle from Valla. The fables begin on 57. Bodemann counts 76 fable illustrations, double-framed, in her edition, and I get the same number when I count here. The woodcuts are strong and simple and particularly well-defined and clear here; Bodemann notes that they derive ultimately from the Aesopus Dorpii. Good examples of their strength might be Ass and Horse (70), The Man Who Found an Axe on the Road (95), The Shepherd Up a Tree Whose Cloak Is Eaten Beneath Him (117), WC (125), and The Fox and the Hunters (214). If one wanted to select a characteristic piece for contrast and comparison it might well be WC with the curved neck of the crane. The fabulists listed here are Laurentius Valla, Gulielmus Gudanus, Hadrianus Barlandus, Gulielmus Hermanus, Rimicius, Angelus Policianus, Petrus Crinitus, Plinius Secundus Nonocomensis, and Aulus Gellius, all of whose work is easy for me to identify. The opening list then promises thirteen fables from various writers and a final group of fables from Gabrius, and these I do not find. AI at the end. A lovely little early treasure!