1499 INCUNABULA FULLY ILLUSTRATED COMEDY by TERENCE antique RARE INCUNABLE

TERENTIUS AFER, PUBLIUS. 185-159 B.C.

Terentius, cum directorio: vocabulorum,ssentiarum, artis comice / glosa interlineali / commentariis: Donato, Guidone, Ascensio.

[Strassburg: Johann (Reinhard) Gruninger, 11 February 1499]

Comoediae.

[Gloss and commentary by Aelius Donatus, Guido Juvenalis, and Jodocus Badius Ascensius. ]



Small folio: 8.5 by 12"


Precious Strasbourg incunabula sought after for its remarkable wood-engraved illustration.

This is the second edition of the theater of Terence printed by Grüninger, after that of 1496, which was the first illustrated edition of Terence.

Established by the poet Johannes Curtus d'Ebenspach, it is accompanied by comments by Donat, Guy Jouenneaux and Josse Bade, and a life of Terence taken from Petrarch.

The illustration, of typical Strasbourg style, is made up of 7 full-page woodcuts – the first, on the title, shows a theater with its actors and spectators, the others, placed at the head of each piece, presents the different characters – and 158 mid-page figures, made up of five blocks each, some of which are used several times.

72 lines of commentary surrounding text, with headlines. 

Taken from the 1496 edition, this suite seems inspired by the first illustrated Terence, given in Lyon in 1493 by Jean Trechsel.
It is nonetheless of a singular graphic inventiveness and marks a notable inflection in the illustration of the Germanic book, systematizing in particular the use of parallel hatching to represent the depth in the image, an inflection confirmed by Horace and Virgil published by Gruninger in 1498 and 1502.
The copy was rubricated at the time and decorated with large initials painted in red.
Certain figures were formerly enhanced with colors and their speech bubbles sometimes completed with a handwritten legend in red.

Yellow and black marbled cardboard (19th century binding).

First two text sheets and the last three (ff. b1-2 and F4-6) and quite faded:

repairs to the paper on multiple sheets, generally marginal and rarely touching the print,
lack restored to the wood of the title ,

2ff. inverted liminaries,
tear repaired on f. LVII;
waterstains, stains and foxing,
a few minor tears, and a few minor worm bites on the last pages;
caps and corners worn.


The woodcuts represent the first attempt to reproduce stage settings in a realistic way and depict Strasbourg fashion of the time.

Text in Latin

HC, 15432 – Proctor, 488 – Pollain (B), 3670 – Goff, T-101 – BMC, I, 113 – Brunet, V, 710 – Schreiber, V, n°5332 – L. Hermand-Schebat, “Text and image in the commented Latin editions of Térence”, Camenæ, n°10, 2011.

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Publius Terentius Afer (c.?195/185 – c.?159? BC), better known in English as Terence, was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on, impressed by his abilities, freed him. Terence abruptly died, around the age of 25, likely in Greece or on his way back to Rome, due to shipwreck or disease.  He was supposedly on his way to explore and find more plots to base his comedies on. His plays were heavily used to learn to speak and write in Latin during the Middle Ages and Renaissance Period, and in some instances were imitated by Shakespeare.

One famous quotation by Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me."
This appeared in his play Heauton Timorumenos.
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