Dionysii Catonis Disticha de moribus ad filium. Cum notis integris Scaligeri, Barthii, Daumii; scholiis atque animadversionibus selectis Erasmi, Opitii, Wachii; et metaphrasi graeca Planudis et Scaligeri. Quibus accedunt Boxhornii dissertatio, et Henrici Cannegieteri rescripta Boxhornio de Catone; nec non Joan. Hild. Withofii Dissertationes binae de distichorum auctore et vera illorum lectione. Recensuit, suasque adnotationes addidit Otto Arntzenius. Editio altera auctior & emendatior.

8vo. LXXVI (including frontispiece),578,(36 index),(2 blank) p. Contemporary vellum. 21 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 191502472; Schweiger 2,70: ‘Der Herausgeber hat seine eigenen Anmerkungen sehr vermehrt’; Brunet 1,1668; Graesse 2,82; Ebert 3736: ‘A new recension from MSS. and old editions’) (Details: 6 thongs laced through both joints. Boards with gilt borders and corner pieces; gilt floral motives in the centre of them. Frontispiece designed and engraved by S. Fokke, it depicts the goddess Athena in full armour sitting on a cloud; at her feet 3 putti bent over a copy of the ‘Catonis Disticha’. Title printed in red & black) (Condition: Vellum age-tanned. Gilt on the back gone. All 4 ties also gone) (Note: ‘The Distichs of Cato (Latin: ‘Catonis Disticha’), form a Latin collection of proverbial wisdom and morality by an unknown author named Dionysius Cato from the 3rd or 4th century AD. The Cato was the most popular medieval schoolbook for teaching Latin, praised not only as a Latin textbook, but as a moral compass. Cato was in common use as a Latin teaching aid all the way to the 18th century (…). It was one of the best-known books in the Middle Ages and was translated into many languages’. (Wikipedia s.v. ‘Distichs of Cato’) § This volume on offer is the second revised and augmented edition; Arntzenius published his first edition in 1735. The second edition contains several ‘praefationes’, the Latin text accompanied by the opposing translations into Greek by Planudes and Scaliger, a very extensive commentary and ‘variantes lectiones’; the last 228 pages are filled with dissertations on the ‘Catonis Disticha’ by the Dutchmen Boxhorn, Cannegieter and the German Withof (2). The edition was produced by the Dutch schoolmaster Otto Arntzenius, 1703-1763, Conrector of the ‘Schola Latina’ in Utrecht (1728), Rector in Gouda (1737), in Delft (1741), in Amsterdam (1745). (NNBW 1,180/81) The Dutch linguist Marcus Zuerius Boxhornius, ‘Professor Eloquentiae’ at the University of Leiden from 1632, tried to prove in his dissertation that the author of the Catonis Disticha was a late antique christian. (Boxhornius’ Diss. p. 357: ‘Aliter ego sentio, & omnino credo Autorem fuisse Christianum’) The Dutch classical scholar and historian Hendrik Cannegieter on the other hand attacked Boxhorn and tried to prove that the work was composed by a pagan author who lived before the time of Constantine the Great, say 310 A.D. (Cannegieter’s Diss. p. 381: ‘mox enim docebimus, non ab homine Christiano, sed Pagano conscriptum esse’. And: Idem, p. 436: ‘vixisse ante Constantinum’) The German ‘Professor Historiae’ at Duisburg Johannes Hildebrandus Withofius supposed that the author lived before the emperor Valentinianus I, whose reign began in 364 A.D. (Withof’s Diss. I p.,518: ‘ante Valentiniani Primi tempora vixisse’)) (Collation: *-4*8, 5*6; A-2P8, 2Q4 (leaf 2Q4 blank)) (Photographs on request)