Catullus. Tibullus. Propertius

A lovely, unsophisticated copy in contemporary limp vellum (binding lightly soiled, remains of ties, small splits on spine). Very fresh and bright, with generous margins and only some very minor ink marks or the occasional blemish. Title lightly soiled and with early note deleted in ink. An early reader (possibly two) has made comments, offered alternate readings, and supplied the occasional line in the longer poems Cat. 61. (Epithalamium), Cat. 63 (Attis), Cat. 64 (the epyllion, printed here under the title "Argonautica"), and 68A. ("Quod mihi fortuna."); as well as in a few of the shorter poems. The important second Aldine edition of the poems of Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius, co-edited by Girolamo Avanzi (fl. 1500.) and Aldus. The first Aldine Catullus, one of the first of the "libri portatiles", the handy ("forma enchiridii") octavo-sized format that Aldus popularized, appeared in 1502. In his epistle to the reader, Aldus informs us that Avanzi has made further improvements upon the text for this edition. "Avantius was younger by a generation than all of his Catullan predecessors, and a more careful textual critic than any-with the obvious exception of Poliziano. He was to become a professional editor of Latin poetry, principally for the Venetian printers Johannes Tacuinus and Aldo Manuzio, preparing, inter alia, editions of Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius (Tacuino, 1500), Lucretius (Aldine, 1500), and the first and second Aldine editions of Catullus (1502; 1515). "Because Avanzi was more systematic, thorough, and knowledgeable than his predecessors -and because he had the whole printed tradition to work with- he was able to make an enormous contribution to the text of Catullus in the 'Emendationes'. In addition to a large number of emendations, he made dozens of corrections both to the printed tradition as a whole and to the recent base text of Calfurnio and Partenio. He also made some improvements in the 'dispositio carminum', although this was becoming increasingly difficult, since the easy corrections had already been made." (Gaisser, Catullus and His Renaissance Readers. p.52 ff. ) "Avantius is principally interested in textual and metrical problems and only occasionally in interpretation. His emendations are based on the collation of his texts, the work of other scholars, and his own observations of Catullus' stylistic and metrical practice. He depends much less on parallels from other Latin and Greek authors, which he cites sparingly and selectively. "The 'Emendationes' were [first] published without a text of Catullus, but the second edition, published in 1500, appeared in a volume that included not only Catullus but also Tibullus and Propertius. [.] Avantius used this edition as the basis for his important first Aldine edition of Catullus (1502), and its influence is apparent in his second Aldine (1515)." (Gaisser, 'Catullus' in 'Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum' Vol. VII) Catullus: "Catullus' name and poetry are traditionally associated with the 'neoteric revolution'; indeed, they are the most important document of it. It is a revolution in literary taste but also a revolution in ethics. While at a time of acute crisis for the Republic the old moral and political values of the 'civitas' are crumbling, personal 'otium' becomes the attractive alternative to communal life, the space in which to devote oneself to culture, poetry, friendship, and love. The small universe of the individual, with its joys and dramas, is identified with the very horizon of existence, and literary activity no longer turns towards epic and tragedy, the genres that speak for the state and its values, but rather toward lyric, towards personal poetry, which is introverted and suitable for embracing and expressing the small events of private life." "[Catullus' poetry] achieved a vast and immediate success among cultivated Latin readers. In particular, it exercised a profound influence upon the Augustan poets (with the exception.…