4to. 2 volumes: (XVI,XXIV),1320,(122 index),(1 printer's mark)(1 blank) p. 19th cent. boards. 24 cm (Ref: VD17 1:043513Q. Schweiger p. 764/5: 'Gänzliche Umarbeitung seiner Ausg. (...) T.'s Commentar ist höchst schätzbar'. Dibdin 2,311: Taubmann 'has greatly contributed towards the restoration of the true text of Plautus'. Fabricius/Ernesti, Bibl. Lat. 1773, I,19/20: 'Praestantissimae ad intelligendum hunc Comicum sunt editiones Taubmannianae, (...) contextum pluribus locis exhibent meliorem, ac praeter luculentos commentarios, omnium, quique ante Plauto manus admoverant, industriam delibantes ac vincentes'; Brunet 4,708/09; Graesse 5,328; Ebert 17191) (Details: 19th cent. uniform black boards with red morocco letterpiece on the back. Printer's mark on the title, which depicts an intertwined snake, feather & laurel, with a soaring bird, a pigeon? on top, and is repeated at the end, with the addition 'Wittenbergae, typis Johannis Gormanni'. The motto reads: 'Simplicitas astu bene fermentata triumphat') (Condition: Binding very scuffed, worn at extremities. Paper on the boards & the backs partly worn away. Joints of the second volume cracking. Small inkstain on the upper edge of the first 100 pages. Title browned. Regularly old ink underlinings, occasional ink annotations by a German hand. Ownership entries on the front endpapers) (Note: The German humanist Friedrich Taubmann, 1565-1613, a man of humble origin, was 'Professor Poeseos' (Latin) at the University of Wittenberg from 1595. He was also an accomplished Neolatin poet. His favorite author (meum poeticum cor) was the Roman playwright Plautus, ca. 250-184 B.C. He considered his much critized first edition of Plautus of 1605 a disaster, and asked the publisher to destroy the remainder (2/3) of the copies printed, and to replace it by a revised second edition, which was indeed published in 1612. Taubmann was above all a compiler of the commentaries of others. He employed the Plautus text of Camerarius for his edition, and new material provided by the Flemish classical scholar Janus Gruterus, or in Dutch Jan Gruter, since 1602 Keeper of the Bibliotheca Palatina at Heidelberg. Gruter had bought from the sons of Joachim Camerarius (1500-1574) for his library 2 manuscripts, the 'codex vetus' and 'codex decurtatus', because he realized more than Camerarius himself the exceptional worth of both manuscripts. Taubmann received valuable help from the Keeper, who collated the Palatine manuscripts, and made good use of them in his second edition. 'In der That beruht der Werth der Taubmann'schen Edition in dem ausserordentlichen Reichthume der commentatorischen Parallelen; nach dieser Hinsicht mag sie heute noch mehr als geschichtliche Aufmerksamkeit beanspruchen. Die zweite Ausgabe war textlich viel sorgsamer und übertraf in Correctheit, Typenwahl und Ausstattung die über alle Maassen liederliche erste erklecklich' (ADB 37,433-440). This second edition of 1612 receives also much praise from Schweiger, Dibdin and Fabricius/Ernesti. At the end are added 2 treatises, the first by J. Camerarius 'De Fabulis Plautinis' and the second by J.C. Scaliger 'De carminibus Comicis'. Taubmann died the year after the appearance of this great edition, leaving a wife and 5 young children. His edition's fame survived him) (Provenance: On the front flyleaf: 'Laurenz Lersch, 1835'. Johann Heinrich Laurenz Lersch, 1811-1849, was a German archaeologist and classical philologist. He has a lemma in Wikipedia § Also the name of 'Paul Weiland stud. phil. 1883') (Collation: a-b4, 2)(-4)(4; A-4Z4; a-4t4, 4u2) (Photographs on request) (Heavy set, may require extra shipping costs)