QUINTILIAN. Institutiones oratoriæ. Treviso: Giovanni... Lot 40

QUINTILIAN. Institutiones oratoriæ. [Treviso: Giovanni Rosso, between 1480 and 1485]. - In-folio, 310 x 215: (201 ff. out of 202, mq the last blank) [sig. ()2 a8 b-r8/6 s-z8 &8 A6 B8 C6 D3(out of 4)]; car. rom. and greek, 39 lines. Havana half calf with corners, ruled paper covers, spine with decorated ribbing (18th century binding). Hain, 13644. - Proctor, 6495. this rare incunabulum edition appeared without mention of printer or date . Printed in Roman and Greek characters, it has been identified as coming out of the first presses of Giovanni Rosso in Treviso. Some bibliographers, however, such as Copinger, place the printing in Venice in 1476. Giovanni Rosso was from Vercelli in Piedmont . He worked as a printer in Treviso from 1480 to 1485 and then in Venice from 1486 to 1519. He is also known for a Venetian printing in 1482, the Regulæ grammaticales of Guarinus printed on March 26th of that year. The work contains the Oratory Institution, the work of the rhetorician Quintilian (0030?-0100?). It is a manual divided into 12 books on the theory and practice of rhetoric, in which the author reacts against the "modern" taste represented by Seneca and advocates the return to Ciceronian classicism. This edition copies the first one given in Venice by Jenson in 1471. It begins with a table and an epistle by the Italian humanist and publisher Omnibonus Leonicenus (1412?-1500?) addressed to Moses Buffaroli (14...-1471), bishop of Bellune. It is so rare that it is missing from most of the dedicated bibliographies. Complete copy, except for the last blank page. The first flyleaf is covered with a nineteenth-century handwritten note in French, concerning the dating of this edition: "We would tend to believe that this edition was made either by Jenson's heirs, or by someone who, after death, acquired its characters". On the first lining there is also a note by the English scholar