Quarto; 6 preliminary leaves, unnumbered, and 51 leaves numbered in roman figures, divided into ten signatures (A to K), containing alternately one and a half and two leaves. In all, 57 printed leaves, and one blank.
On the first unnumbered leaf is the title: 'Berosus,' etc. (as in the first edition), but with the following addition: 'Cornelii Taciti de origine et situ Germanorum opusculum. C. C. de situ et moribus Germanorum.—Anno Domini 1511.' Then follows a shocking imitation of the mark of the Marnefs in the first edition. The gothic initials E and G are changed to C and O, and the I, which in the other editions stands between the E and the G, is omitted. The words 'Le Pelican,' in a scroll at the left, are reduced to the three letters L, P, and A, the foreign artist having been either unable or unwilling to read what was printed on the copy put before him, which, it is true, may have been imperfect. The first decorated letter, also, has been copied, in order to deceive the reader, who, if we may judge from appearances, was assumed to be seeking the edition prepared by Tory.
On the second leaf is the letter of the editor, from which the word 'civis,' Tory's device, has been omitted, the foreign printer apparently not knowing its meaning. The four leaves following are taken up with the table of contents.
Folio i of the text: 'Berosus,' etc. The text which follows corresponds with that of the first edition down to folio xxxii (erroneously numbered xxxiii), which ends with the word 'finis.'
On folio xxxiii recto, the work of Tacitus mentioned above ['Germania'] begins. Next, on folio xliii verso, a work in verse by Conrad Celtès, the title of which is given above, and on folio xlviii, another work, in prose, by the same author, with this title: 'Ex libro C. C. de situ et moribus Norimberge, de Herciniæ silvæ magnitudine, et de eius in Europa definitione et populis incolis.'
There is nothing to indicate where the book was printed; but everything leads me to believe that it is a German counterfeit. My opinion is based upon, first, the stupid imitation of the printer's mark of the first edition; second, the omission of Tory's device at the end of the letter; third, the additions, all of which relate to Germany; fourth, the fact that two of the three known copies of this edition were recently to be found in the same country. One belonged to Panzer, who has described it in his 'Annales Typographiques'[202]; I do not know what has become of it; a second copy was formerly in the library of M. Bunau,[203] whence it passed to the Dresden Library; the third is in Paris, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which also possesses a copy of the first edition. It was by comparing the two editions that I discovered the fraud committed by the printer of the edition of 1511 with respect to the typographical mark. The description of this mark given by Panzer, with that courteously sent me from Dresden by the learned bibliographer Herr Graesse, before I was aware of the existence of the copy of the third edition in the Bibliothèque Nationale, had utterly baffled such bibliographical knowledge as I possess. I sought a meaning for the letters inscribed on the mark in the third edition; of course I could not find any. M. Brunet has since produced a facsimile of this mark, in the fifth edition of his 'Manuel.'[204]
5
VALERII PROBI GRAMMATICI DE INTERPRETANDIS ROMANORUM LITERIS OPUSCULUM, CUM ALIIS QUIBUSDAM SCITU DIGNISSIMIS, FŒLICITER INCIPIT.—Mark: Marnef's E. I. G. (Silvestre, no. 974.)
Octavo; 6 printed sheets (signatures A to I). Paris, E. I. G. de Marnef [1510]. This book was probably printed by Gilles de Gourmont, for we find in it his unaccented Greek type. It contains two engravings on wood,—the mark on the title-page, and a Roman portico farther on. There are also some small cuts engraved on metal in one of the pieces; but none of them have any artistic merit, and they cannot be attributed to Tory.