Phaedri, Aug. liberti, Fabularum Aesopiarum libri V. Cum integris commentariis Marq. Gudii, Conr. Rittershusii, Nic. Rigaltii, Is. Neveleti, Nic. Heinsii, Joan. Schefferi, Jo. Lud. Praschii, & excerptis aliorum curante Petro Burmanno.

8vo. 2 parts in 1: (LXII),398;258,(70 index) p., including frontispiece. Calf 21 cm (Ref: STCN 296744565; Schweiger 2,736; cf. Dibdin 2,280; cf. Moss 2,394; Graesse 5,253; Brunet 4,588; Ebert 16595) (Details: Back with 5 raised bands. Morocco letterpiece, once red, in the second compartment. Floral gilt ornaments in the other compartments. Marbled endpapers. Title in red & black. Woodcut ornament on the title. Frontispiece designed by P. Tiedeman and executed by J. Mulder, depicting Phaedrus with pen on paper while he listens to his Muse; in the background Aesopus surrounded by fable animals) (Condition: Back scuffed. Corners bumped) (Note: The Roman poet Phaedrus, 15 B.C. – ca. 50 A.D., occupies in the history of the fable a very important role. He was a slave of Thracian descent, and became a freedman (libertus) of the first Roman emperor Augustus. He composed 5 books (probably incomplete) of verse fables. His beast-tales are adaptions of the fables of the Greek poet and archfabulist Aesopus, or Aisopos (6th century B.C), and inventions of his own. Phaedrus prides himself to have elevated the fable into an independent genre of literature. Sometimes he satirizes contemporary conditions, and he is always fond of emphasizing the moral of the story. ‘The presentation is, in general, animated and marked by a brevity of which Phaedrus is rightly proud, but which sometimes leads to obscurity’. (OCD 2nd ed. p. 809) Nevertheless, his style is clear, pure and simple, this in contrast to the swollen rhetoric of his time. He was widely read in the Middle Ages. During the 17th & 18th he was also very much en vogue. Schweiger lists hundreds of editions. Very popular among scholars and students were the Dutch ‘Variorum editions’ of Phaedrus. This kind of editions offered a ’textus receptus’ which was widely accepted, and was accompanied with the commentary and the annotations of various specialists, taken, or excerpted from earlier useful, normative or renewing editions. Editions like these, ‘cum notis Variorum’, were useful, but never broke new ground. This ‘Variorum edition’ was produced by the leading scholar Petrus Burmannus, 1668-1741. He was professor of Latin at the University of Utrecht from 1696, and at Leiden from 1715. As an editor he was an industrious manufacturer of ‘Variorum editions’, confining himself to the Latin classics. He edited besides Phaedrus, Horace, Claudian, Ovid, Lucan, and the Poetae Latini Minores, Petronius, Quintilian, Suetonius. (Sandys 2 p. 343/5) Didbin and Moss do not mention this ‘Variorum edition’ of 1728. They mention only the Burmannus editions of 1698 and 1718. Schweiger had a sharper eye, for he observes about this edition of 1728: ‘Bloss neuer Titel zur Ausgabe von 1718’. This 1728 edition is indeed exactly the same as the edition of 1718. We compared both editions, and must conclude that Luchtmans must have bought the unsold copies of the edition of 1718 from the publisher Scheurleer in The Hague, removed the original title, added only a new title-page dated 1728, and brought them to the market for the second time) (Collation: pi1, *8 (minus leaf *8), 2-3*8, 4*6, (5*)1; A-2B8 (minus blank leaf 2B8); a-v8, x4) (Photographs on request)