Seconde guerre punique, poëme de Silius Italicus, Corrigé sur quatre Manuscrits, & sur la précieuse Edition de Pomponius, donnée en 1471, inconnue de tous les Editeurs; completté par un long Fragment […] Tome second

Full title: Seconde guerre punique, poëme de Silius Italicus, Corrigé sur quatre Manuscrits, & sur la précieuse Edition de Pomponius, donnée en 1471, inconnue de tous les Editeurs; completté par un long Fragment trouvé dans la Bibliothèque du Roi; & traduit Par M. Lefebvre de Villebrune. Tome second.

Second of three volumes in 8vo. pp. [2] (blank], [5], 4-219 [i.e. 438], [3] (blank). Decorative contemporary marbled calf. Gilt spine and boards. Includes head- and tailpieces. Ex libris Franz Pollack-Parnau. Plate of the famille De Luserna. Stamp of the Biliothèque communale du Petit Saconnex.

First edition to include 34 additional lines (Book VI, lines 28-61), verses 885-918 from Petrarch’s Latin epic ‘Africa,’ attributed by Lefebvre to Silius Italicus. The editor states that he found this fragment in a Paris manuscript and believed that Petrarch had appropriated it for his poem (cf. preface, pp. x-xi). They were later translated into English by ‘Byron’, i.e. Thomas Medwin, and exposed by Ugo Foscolo as a 14th-century interpolation. See also Bib# 678192/Fr# 277.1 in this collection for the first printing of ‘Africa.’

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