PHILON D'ALEXANDRIE en grec Lot n° 10

Philonis Juadei in libros Mosis, de mundi opificio, historicos, de legibus. Ejusdem libri singularis. Paris, Adrien Turnèbe, 1552. In-folio of (6) ff, 720 pp. misfigured 736 without missing [the pagination jumps by mistake from 704 to 721], (4) ff. of index in Greek and (20) ff. of index in Latin with the completion of printing on the last leaf: brown calf, smooth spine and boards entirely covered with a large decoration of interlacing painted in black and set with gilt fillets, partly on a gold stippled ground, scrolls of azure irons in the centre on a gold stippled ground, decorated edges, gilt edges (period binding). Princeps edition. A magnificent edition in very large format, given by Adrien Turnèbe (1512-1565), the King's printer for Greek. Paper, layout, ornaments and lettering probably designed by Ange Vergèce, are worthy of admiration. The printing of his magnum opus with the "King's Greeks" was entrusted to Guillaume Morel. "The greatest man who was a thousand years ago" (Montaigne). A Judeo-Greek philosopher contemporary with Christ, Philo inaugurated a mystical theology as well as the allegorical exegesis of Scripture based on Stoicism and Plato, to the point of being at the origin of the European theological language. His works, meditated on and relayed by the Fathers of the Church, were revived in the 16th century. This editio princeps given by Turnèbe was in the library of Montaigne, who had a fervent admiration for the philologist and poet, and liked to point out that he was the pupil, at the Collège royal, of the most prestigious master of his century. (Villey, Les sources & l'évolution des Essais I, 1908, p. 232.) Superb contemporary binding with a large decoration of interlacing painted in black. A wide-margined copy, entirely ruled. It bears some old annotations in Greek in the margins of the beginning. Very skilful restorations, notably on the spine. A blow in the gutter margin has left a small hole in the white margin of the first fifty leaves, without gravity and without affecting the text. Small light spotting in the margin of the lower corner of the volume. Provenance: - Manuscript bookplate, dated 1552, at the foot of the title and cancelled. - Robert Hoblyn (1710-1756), with armorial bookplate. Bibliophile and English politician, his collection was dispersed in London in 1778. - Michael Wodhull, manuscript bookplate. Hellenist, translator of Euripides' works, he formed one of the most beautiful English collections. He noted the price and date of purchase (catalogue 1886, n° 1975: "Very large copy, ruled, in old calf covered with gold tooling in the Grolier style, back broken and fatigué.") - Édouard Rahir (Books in rich bindings, 1910, nº 41 and plate 7)