Pontici Virunnii viri doctissimi Britannicæ historiæ libri sex : magna et fide et diligentia conscripti : Ad Britannici codicis fidem correcti, & ab infinitis mendis liberati : quibus præfixus est catalogus regum Britanniæ

Full title: Pontici Virunnii viri doctissimi Britannicæ historiæ libri sex: magna et fide et diligentia conscripti: Ad Britannici codicis fidem correcti, & ab infinitis mendis liberati: quibus præfixus est catalogus regum Britanniæ: per Davidem Povelum, S. Theolog. professorem

 

8vo. pp. [14], 284, [6] (last blank), [4] (blank). Signatures: A-T⁸. Modern boards; contemporary annotations, including a manuscript index (4 pp.) at the end. Pp. 85-88 crossed out in ink. Engraved vignette on title page, reproduced on title page of each part. Engraved initials, head- and tailpieces.

 

An abridgement of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae (ca. 1135), an influential patriotic medieval forgery in which Geoffrey asserts that his work was but a translation of a liber vetustissimus or “very ancient book” written originally in the “British tongue.” See the 2007 edition by M. D. Reeve, Woodbridge, prologus, 4–5.

 

Together with Giraldus Cambrensis, Itinerarium Cambriae and Cambriae descriptio, and as such the earliest edition of Geoffrey printed in England. "Itinerarium Cambriae" and "Cambriae descriptio", both by Giraldus Cambrensis. Each work has separate dated title page; pagination and register are continuous.

 

See W. A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, & K. F. Pantzer (eds.), Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland, & Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad, 1475–1640. 3 vols. London, 1976–91 (2^nd ed.), 20109; J. Lynch, “England’s Ireland, Ireland’s England. William Henry Ireland’s National Offense,” in W. Stephens & E. Havens (eds.), Literary forgery in early modern Europe, 1450-1800, Baltimore, 2018, p. 258.

 

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