4to. 2 volumes: (LXXIV),966 (recte 968);(CIVC, indices) p.; folding map. Vellum 26 cm 'A valuable edition, containing the ancient scholia, select notes of ancient and modern editors' (Ref: STCN ppn 238571637; Schweiger 2,564; Dibdin 2,186; Moss 2,242; Fabricius/Ernesti 2,146/47; Brunet 3,1200; Graesse 4,273; Ebert 12349) (Details: Backs with 5 raised bands. Boards blind tooled. Title in red and black. Luchtman's woodcut printer's mark on the title, it depicts Pallas Athena leaning on her shield, the aegis; the motto: 'Tuta sub Aegide Pallas'. Folding map of the ancient world. 3 engraved text illustrations) (Condition: Vellum somewhat soiled. The front joint of volume 1 has a crack of 4 cm. Ownership's inscription on the title. Bookplate removed from the front pastedown. Some slight foxing. Frontispiece removed) (Note: When the first three books of the only surving work of the Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus, 39-65 A.D., the epic 'Bellum Civile' or 'Pharsalia', were published in 62 or 63, the emperor Nero was not amused, because it was great poetry, and because it contained eloquent denunciations of tyranny. The epic was on the civil war between Caesar and Pompeius, a war that ended the Roman republic. Lucan soon joined the conspiracy of Piso against the emperor Nero, and was forced to commit suicide on its disclosure, spring 65. The remaining books of the 'Pharsalia', the last, book 7 being unfinished, were published posthumously after the death of Nero. 'Beginning with the causes of the war between Caesar and Pompey, it carries the story beyond the death of Pompey until it breaks off with Caesar's occupation of Pharos in Egypt. The battle of Pharsalos is related in book 7. (...) All the resources of rhetoric are enlisted to impress the reader; vehement declamation and brilliant epigrammatic utterances (sententiae) are everywhere in evidence. There are numerous digressions, many of them making a display of curious learning'. (OCD 2nd ed. p. 620) Lucan made Pompey a tragic hero and evoked sympathy for him and his lost republican cause. The climax of the story is the battle at Pharsalos. According to Rose, the 'Pharsalia' contains 'some of the finest rhetoric ever written in verse'. (H.J. Rose, A handbook of Latin literature, London 1967, p. 380) The philosophy of the Pharsalia is Stoic. § Lucan was during the Middle Ages a popular school-author, he survives in ca. 300 manuscripts. His afterlife is interesting. At the beginning of the Renaissance he was placed by Dante alongside Homer, Horace and Ovid. 'For the Renaissance, Lucan provided an important precedent for composing epics about comparatively recent historical events, and more remarkably (...) for epics whose sympathies favor the losing side'. Lucan's republicanism made him in the 17th century unsuitable for incorporation in the series 'editions for the Dauphin', the crown prince of France, while on the other hand the poet was admired by Voltaire for his libertas. § This edition of 1728 was produced by the Dutch classical scholar Franciscus Oudendorp, 1696-1761, who was, according to Sandys, the last of the great latinists of his age. For the last 20 years of his life he was professor of Eloquence and History at the University of Leiden. He consulted for his edition 17 manuscripts and also old editions, adding his own remarks and annotations, and he published the very useful old scholiasts of Lucanus, the 'Adnotationes super Lucanum', a series of short notes on Lucan's Pharsalia dating from the Middle Ages, here for the first time. Oudendorp restored many places with the help of the 'Adnotationes', often offering them as his own ideas and conjectures, 'mori aetatis suae indulgens'. (Adnotationes super Lucanum, edidit I. Weber, Leipzig, 1909, p. V) Nevertheless, the English scholar A.E Housman observed in the introduction to his Lucan edition of 1926 that Oudendorp's edition is the most solid and valuable, though not in all respects the most important. He was, according to Housman, 'in common sense, sobriety of judgment, and fairness of temper, (...) the best of Lucan's annotators') (Provenance: On the title in ink: 'Bibliothecae FF Min. Hib. Conventus Pontanensis, 1895'. This book once belonged to the library of the monastery of the Fratres Minores (Friars Minor) in the Irish city of Drogheda. See for the long and turbulent history of this monastery highlanes.ie/Content.aspx?PageID=71. There we read that a new friary (residence) was opened on St. Laurence Street in 1840. At that time the Franciscan community consisted of four priests assisted by two tertiaries. The conventus of the friars became in 1860 a Noviciate, that is, a training school or university for members of religious orders, and remained so until 1877. The scholarly interest of the friars did not wane, as is shown by the entry of this book in 1895) (Collation: Volume 1: +6 (minus leaf +6), 2-3+4; *-6*4, folding map, A-3R4, 3S4 (after leaf 3S1 leaf chi1, the half title of the second volume), 3T-6E4, 6F4 (minus blank leaf 6F4); a-2a4, 2b2 (minus blank leaf 2b2)) (Photographs on request) (Heavy book, may require extra shipping costs)