Decorative, solid and clean copy of the uncommon scolarly Venetian edition of the lively Letters by Cicero to friends, annotated by the French Jesuit Ph. Quartier for the use of the royal Dauphin. The first edition thus appeared in Paris 1685. This collection of Cicero's "Letters to his Friends" was originally preserved and edited by his secretary Tiro. It is inadequately entitled, as it includes several letters, some of them of profound interest, from his friends to Cicero. There are 426 letters, divided into sixteen books, not arranged in any sort of order, chronological or otherwise, except that letters from or to particular correspondents are generally grouped together; the third book, for instance, consists exclusively of letters from Cicero to Appius Claudius Pulcher, and the eighth book of letters from Marcus Caelius Rufus to Cicero. The earliest letter is one from Cicero to Pompey (X. 7) dated 62 B.C., the year after Cicero's consulship; the latest is one from him to Cassius (XII. 10) written in 43 B.C., the year after the assassination of Caesar, and a few months before his own. These ninteen years from 62 to 43 B.C. cover a period of supreme importance in the history of the Roman Republic--a period more minutely described and vividly illustrated in these letters, giving us as they do the different points of view among the various correpondents, than even in the "Letters to Atticus," written by Cicero alone. The letters vary greatly in interest and style; while many of them contain matter of the highest literary or historical value--as, for instance, Cicero's explanation of his political chance of front (I. 9), Sulpicius Rufus' letter of condolence to Cicero on the death of his daughter Tullia (IV. 5) and Matius' defense of his friendship for Caesar (XI. 28)--others are no more than merely formal documents." Cf. Cicero: Letters to His Friends, trans. W. Glynn Williams, Loeb Classical Library vol. 205, Harvard UP: Cambridge, MA. 1990, 1927. Slight browning; shelf mark on first free endpaper; binding somewhat soiled as expected, small defect to spine ends. Graesse, II, p. 169.