Bioi philosophon kai sophiston. De vitis philosophorum et sophistarum. Hadriano Iunio Hornano interprete.

IMPORTANT C16TH PROVENANCE?

8vo, pp. [8], 223, [9]. Roman and Italic letters. Latin and Greek texts. Printer's device on t-p, woodcut head and tailpieces, decorated initials. Early annotations on t-p, apparently including the autograph of an important French collector of the 16th century at foot, as pointed out by a pencil note on the verso of the upper flyleaf (not identified though: "Chadric"?). Sporadic early ms. notes and underlining throughout. Occasional light water staining and binding extremities a little bit worn. A very good copy plus bound in limp contemporary vellum with remains of ties, original endpapers.

Second edition of the Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists with the addition of the author's "Legationes" taken from a codex found the library of Jesuit scholar André Schott of Antwerp. The editio princeps of the Greek text, with Latin translation by Hadrianus Junius of Hoorn, was printed by Plantin in 1564. The Greek historian Eunapius was born at Sardis in 347 CE, but went to Athens to study and lived much of his life there teaching rhetoric and possibly medicine. He was initiated into the mysteries and was hostile to Christians. His Lives of Philosophers and Sophists (mainly contemporary with himself) is our only source for knowledge of Neo-Platonism in the latter part of the fourth century.

VD16 E4179; STC 289; Adams E1029; Schweiger, I, 114.