Historia ecclesiastica
Rome: Printed by Joannes Phillipus de Lignamine, 15 May 1476.
Historia ecclesiastica
Rome: Printed by Joannes Phillipus de Lignamine, 15 May 1476. Third edition. First edition by the first native-born Italian printer. Issued with the dedication to Cardinal Guillaume d'Estouteville, the other issue with a dedication to Sixtus IV. (The first two editions were printed in Utrecht in 1474 and in Strassburg in about 1475 respectively.) Collating [1-1210, 13, 12, 1410, 158, 16-2210]: 219 of 220 leaves, bound without the initial blank. Folio measuring 322 x 442mm and bound in late eighteenth century polished calf tooled and lettered in gilt. Small 1.5" split to lower spine joint. Edges stained red. Marbled endpapers. Early bookplates to front pastedown. Roman type. Lombard initials and paragraph marks supplied in red. Minor working to preliminary and terminal leaves affecting a few letters; several minor marginal paper flaws and occasional early marginalia. Overall a stunning copy of this beautiful edition of a most important piece of Catholic history. Housed in a custom clamshell case.
A cleric of the 4th century, Eusebius was the author of several religious works that have survived and shaped Catholic tradition. "Of Eusebius' many learned publications are a history of martyrs and several apologetic and polemical works; parts of his commentaries on the Psalms and Isaiah...But Eusebius' chief fame rests on The History of the Christian Church, the most important ecclesiastical history of the ancient times, and a great treasury of knowledge about the early Church" (Loeb). A chronological account of the development of Early Christianity, "this was the first full length historical narrative written from the Christian point of view," and it remains an important primary source for Catholic historians (Norman).
Provenance: From the library of Charles de Rohan, Prince de Soubise (with his gilt device on the spine). Bookplates of Horace, Baron de Landau, Albert Ehrman, Broxbourne Library, and George Abrams on front pastedown and of the Biblioteca Broxbourniana to recto of rear endpaper.
BMC IV, 34. Goff E-126. Hain *6710. Proctor 3398. (Item #4522)
