8vo. (XVI),790,(2 blank),(24 index) p. Overlapping vellum 18.5 cm (Ref: Schweiger 2,1000; Dibdin 2,450/2; Ebert 22148; Graesse 6/2,8) (Details: This is the first part of a two volume edition of Tacitus; it contains the Latin text of Tacitus only, and lacks the commentary part. Vellum thong laced through joints at the head and tail of the spine; 4 thongs (partly) gone. Short title in ink on the back. Woodcut printer's mark on the title: depicting the winged mythological horse Pegasus (though cloven-hoofed), the motto in an oval reads: 'Sic aetas non retinenda fugit') (Condition: Vellum age-tanned. Outer edges of the overlapping vellum partly damaged. Book-block almost loose in the binding. Front flyleaf with folds. Title slightly soiled and thumbed. Small and faint waterstain at the right lower corner of the first 5 leaves) (Note: The Flemish latinist Justus Lipsius, 1547-1606, was invited in 1579 to come to Leiden to the recently founded university as a Honorary Professor of History. At that date he already had produced his great Tacitus-edition, published by Plantin, a work that placed and still places him in the front rank of classical scholarship (Antwerp 1574). His main strength lay in textual criticsm and in exegesis. His emendations are considered to be very clever, and his commentary rich. Plantin published a second edition in 1581, with new emendations and 'variae lectiones'. Lipsius's third edition, Antwerp 1585, offered a new recension. The fourth edition was published by the son in law of Plantin, Franciscus Raphelengius, in Leiden in 1588. Lipsius remained there for 11 years, a period of his greatest productivity. Plantin in Antwerp published again in 1588 Lipsius' 5th recension of the text, with commentary. The Leiden branch of Raphelengius brought in 1595, after the departure of Lipsius, a reissue, 'secundis curis' of this 5th recension on the market. Of this 1595 edition, 'our' edition, which is the text volume, is a reissue) (Collation: *8, A-Z8, Aa-Zz8, Aaa-Ccc8, Ddd4 (leaf Ddd4 blank), Eee8, Fff4) (Photographs on request)