ZOROASTER. ~ Oracula Magica Zoraoastris cum scholis Plethonis et Pselli nunc primum editi. E bibliotheca regia. Studio Johannis Opsopoei. Paris: [Compagnie du Grand Navire], 1599.
pp. [3], [7]-144 (complete)
[bound with:] Oracula metrica Iovis, Apollinis, Hecates, Serapidis, et aliorvm Deorum ac Vatum... a Iohanne Opsopoeo collecta. Item Astrampsychi Oneirocriticon à Ios. Scaligero digestum et castigatum. Græce et Latine. Paris, 1599, pp. [2], vii-xxiv, 114, [6] (complete)
Two works bound together, 8vo (192 × 120 mm), wodcut devices to both titles. Red morocco, gilt, c. 1700, perhaps English. Rubbed, further wear to corners, upper joint cracked, wanting headcap.
A Greek edition of the magical oracles of Zoroaster, which includes commentaries of Pletho and Psellus in Latin, together with a separate collection of metrical oracles, both edited by Johannes Opsopaeus (1556-1596, physician and philologist, professor of medicine at Heidelberg, whose principal literary activity related mainly to the Sibylline Oracles and Hippocrates). The two volumes, though separately bound together here, were also issued as the second and third parts of a three-volume collection, the first being of the Sybylline oracles. Both titles bear the fine woodcut Lutetian ship device of the so-called ‘Compagnie de la Grand-Navire’, which in 1599 comprised the printers Abel l’Angelier, Barthélmy Macé, Ambroise Drouart, Michel II and Laurent and Jean Sonnius (Répertoire d’imprimeurs 1265). Their individual devices can be seen on the ship’s pennants. Adams lists each volume both separately and as part of the three volume collection. Brunet V, 370. Caillet 8135. Ebert 21171. Adams O 208-209.