---- 1466. Quarto. UPON VELLUM. A beautiful copy, which measures very nearly ten inches in height.[122] In all these copies, the title of the "Paradoxes" is printed.
CICERONIS. EPIST. FAM. 1467. Folio. Editio Princeps. Cardinal Bessarion's own copy, and unquestionably THE FINEST THAT EXISTS. The leaves are white and thick, and crackle aloud as you turn them over. It is upon paper, which makes me think that there never was a copy upon vellum; for the Cardinal, who was a great patron of Sweynheym and Pannartz, the printers, would doubtless have possessed it in that condition. At the beginning, however, it is slightly stained, and at the end slightly wormed. Yet is this copy, in its primitive binding, finer than any which can well be imagined. The curious are aware that this is supposed to have been the first book printed at Rome; and that the blanks, left for the introduction of Greek characters, prove that the printers were not in possession of the latter when this book was published. The Cardinal has written two lines, partly in Greek and partly in Latin, on the fly leaf. This copy measures eleven inches three eighths by seven inches seven eighths.
CICERO. RHETORICA VETUS. Printed by Jenson. When I had anticipated the beauty of a VELLUM COPY of this book (in the Bibl. Spencer. vol. i. p. 349--here close at hand) I had not of course formed the idea of seeing such a one HERE. This vellum copy is doubtless a lovely book; but the vellum is discoloured in many places, and I suspect the copy has been cut down a little.
---- ORATIONES. Printed by S. and Pannartz. 1471. Folio. A beautifully white and genuine copy; but the first few leaves are rather soiled, and it is slightly wormed towards the end. A fairer Sweynheym and Pannartz is rarely seen.
---- OPERA OMNIA. 1498. Folio. 4 vols. A truly beautiful copy, bound in red morocco; but it is not free from occasional ms. annotations, in red ink, in the margins. It measures sixteen inches and three quarters in height, by ten inches and three quarters in width. A fine and perfect copy of this First Edition of the Entire Works of Cicero, is obtained with great difficulty. A nobler monument of typographical splendour the early annals of the press cannot boast of.
HOMERI OPERA OMNIA. Gr. 1488. Folio. Editio Princeps. A sound, clean copy, formerly Prince Eugene's; but not comparable with many copies which I have seen.
BATRACHOMYOMACHIA. Gr. Without date or place. Quarto. Edit. Prin: executed in red and black lines, alternately. This is a sound, clean, and beautiful copy; perhaps a little cropt. In modern russia binding.
JUVENALIS. Folio. Printed by Ulric Han, in his larger type. A cruelly cropt copy, with a suspiciously ornamented title page. This once belonged to Count Delci.
JUVENALIS. Printed by I. de Fivizano . Without date. Folio. This is a very rare edition, and has been but recently acquired. It contains twenty-seven lines in a full page. There are neither numerals, signatures, nor catchwords. On the sixty-ninth and last leaf, is the colophon. A sound and desirable copy; though not free from soil.
LUCIANI OPUSCULA QUÆDAM. Lat. Printed by S. Bevilaquensis. 1494. Quarto. This is really one of the most covetable little volumes in the world. It is a copy printed UPON VELLUM; with most beautiful illuminations, in the purest Italian taste. Look--if ever you visit the Imperial Library-- at the last illumination, at the bottom of o v, recto. It is indescribably elegant. But the binder should have been hung in chains. He has cut the book to the very quick--so as almost to have entirely sliced away several of the border decorations.