Werba libri ad emptorem. Si placet hybernas libris tibi fallere noctes : Antonius Zarotus Permensis. 1476. The present copy is bound in red morocco. 106. Æsopus. AVIENUS. &c. Lat. et Ital. Versibus. Verona. 1479. Quarto. This very rare and curious edition begins, without any prefix, on the recto of the first leaf, in the following manner : Api chio son Esopo o tu lettore: A cui gli detti mei di leggier piace. Hora son stato in man di correttore : Che in latino e uulghar con mia gran pace Asepous' fueram deformis! non satis istud! Vtiliter salibus seria mixta dabit. The preceding occupies the first page, on the recto of sign. a i. On the reverse we have a large wood-cut, representing a man kneeling, and offering his book to an old man seated, with a laurel round his brow. A landscape of two trees, between hills, forms the background. The whole is within a frame work of two pillars, supporting an architrave, with a cupid or winged boy on each side, at top: upon a black ground by way of border. There is no mean taste displayed in the composition of this arabesque frontispiece; the whole of which, with the obvious improvements suggested by a cultivated taste, might form no contemptible decoration to a modern publication. On the opposite page we have the following inscription, within a star-ornamented border. This ornamented page is succeeded by two pages of Italian poetry; having the running title of 'PROEMIO. IDEM.' We have, in the next page, the following inscription in the centre of an altar. LEPIDIS SIMI AESOPI FABEL LAE Another ornamented page, filled in capital letters, and being the first five verses of the Latin metrical version, succeeds. The border is here pleasingly arabesque. The text of the author regularly succeeds; and after each of the Latin metrical versions of Esop, follow a 'SoNETTO MATERIALE' and a 'SONETTO MORALE;' of the second of each of which, the subjoined note* is a specimen. Whatever may be the relative They belong to the fable of The Cock and the precious Stone.' Ice il maestro chel gallo raspando E cosi sempre lo ignorante pica De laspra pouerta che ognihor limpicha. Cosi disprezza il mato la scienza. SONETTO MORALE. Ostroui el gallo qui raspar letame. E questo el homo che in mortal peccato : Che quando dal bon huom fi consigliato Cioe de peccati il doloroso strame. Ai doloroso tristo e sciagurato |