De rebus gestis Alexandri magni regis Macedonum

De rebus gestis Alexandri magni regis Macedonum The very rare first edition of Quintus Curtius Rufus' History of Alexander the Great, edited by Bartolomeo Merula who corrected (without altering the main body of the text) the errors in the editio princeps by Vindelin de Spire (1470 or 1471). A second edition appeared in 1496 with the same pagination. The History of Alexander the Great makes up books III to IX of the complete works of Curtius Rufus.
An attractive edition by Giovanni Tacuino with 46 lines to the page in Roman character and his printer's mark to colophon. Graesse II, 310. GW, 7876. Brunet, 448.
Three copies identified in European libraries, in Göttingen, the British Library and Cambridge.
Half chamois-type vellum over wooden boards, spine in four compartments, remains of clasps, two manuscript annotations to covers. Capital spaces left blank.
Wormholes to boards, slightly larger wormtracks to corners. Worming without loss to text. Brown dampstain (with a tiny hole to k4) from i4 to end, another, growing fainter, to leaves k5 and k6 and one smaller to margin of a4. Small lack to lower margin of b2.
Several manuscript ex-donos and titles from the 15th and 16th centuries to first endpaper. Numerous notes, some contemporary marginal running titles and underlining in red and brown ink. A few contemporary manuscript notes on the final two endpapers.
Giovanni Tacuino (1482-1541) was an important Venetian publisher and contemporary of Aldus Manutius. He was, after Comin da Trino and Gabriele Giolito, the third publisher from Trino to settle in Venice, a rich intellectual and commercial center. His works are signed “Ioannes Tacuinus de Tridino,” “Ioannis de Cereto alias Tacuinum de Tridin,” “Zuanne de Trino dit Tacuino” or “Zuan Tacuino.” The initials “ZT” also appear in his printer's device at the end of our copy. His workshop produced first editions of great Roman writers as well as works by contemporary authors: Vitruvius, Erasmus, Aulus Gellius, Juvenal...
Bartolomeo Merula was a humanist and a collaborator of Giovanni Tacuino for whom he edited, and produced commentaries on, numerous Classical works. His most famous commentaries are those on Ovid.
An attractive copy in rare contemporary binding of this emblematic work of humanist printing in Renaissance Venice.