De inventoribus rerum libri tres. Noviter impressi: emendatq[ue] q[uem] dilige[n]tissime…

Small 4to (210 × 150 mm), 64 leaves, ff. [6], LVIII (A⁶, B-I⁸, K⁴), 3 ten-line decorative initials (one repeated), numerous other small decorative initials. Title slightly spotted with very slight loss at extreme lower forecorner (probably a paper flaw at the sheet’s edge). Some early marginal annotations. Late seventeenth-century or early eighteenth-century quarter vellum with decorative block-printed pastepaper boards, tan label lettered in gilt. Remnants of old paper shelf label to front pastedown, overwritten with later (?nineteenth-century) manuscript shelf label (no other bookplates or remnants of labels/inscriptions). A few scattered wormholes to spine (with slight loss to the label), upper hinged cracked and front free endpaper becoming detached. A very attractive copy.

An attractive Venetian edition by Johannes Tacuinus de Tridino, which, like the first edition of 1499 consists of the first three books on the ‘origin of things’. In this encyclopaedic work, Vergil addresses questions of origins, from the origin of the gods, man and languages to the origin of wine and liqueurs, marriage, magic, medicine, poetry, drama, geography and law. It notably includes an account of the invention of printing, attributing its birth to Peter Schoeffer, rather than Gutenberg.