Deorum dialogi numero. 70. una cum interpretatione e regione Latina: nus[quam] antea impressi

FIRST EDITION OF NACHTGALL'S TRANSLATION OF LUCIAN'S DIALOGUES OF THE GODS

Strassburg, Johannes Schott, 1515.

[84] ff. Title and two illuminated initials printed in red and black; bilingual edition with Latin text on rectos, Greek on facing versos, with metalcut decorative borders for the Greek text. Bound in later marbled paper and cloth-covered boards, with gilt title on spine label. Ex libris and bibliographic note (dated 1907) of Dr. Josef Schwerdfeger. Toning throughout, small ink spots on title and verso of final leaf, short tear in blank upper margin of title and f. a2, paper flaw in margin of f. t3. Generally very good.

Rare first edition of the Strasbourg humanist Ottmar Nachtigall's edition and parallel Latin translation of Lucian's satirical Dialogues of the Gods. The ancient's cynicism and common sense found a wide audience among Northern European humanists in the intellectual orbit of Erasmus. A member of the circle of Strasbourg humanists which included Jakob Sturm, Nikolaus Gerbel, Thomas Vogler, his teacher Jakob Wimpfeling and Sebastian Brant, Nachtigall is credited with introducing the formal teaching of Greek to the city of Strasbourg. In this capacity he prepared a number of Greek grammars and Greek texts, including an edition of the Palatine Anthology. He met Erasmus during the humanist's visit to Strasbourg in 1514; Erasmus is duly saluted in the present work's preface (a1v), though relations between the two men later underwent some strain when they lived in the same house in Basel (see Contemporaries of Erasmus III.3). Nachtigall is also known for a popular defense of humanistic studies, Grunnius sophista and original works of music theory, and his career warrants study as a Northern humanist sympathetic to church reform who nonetheless remained a Catholic.

OCLC lists copies at the University of Texas-Austin, Emory's Pitts Theology Library, Harvard, and Cambridge.

PROVENANCE: Josef Adolf Schwerdfeger (1867-1931), Austrian historian.