This first edition of any of the
works of Josephus consists of the fourth-century Latin translation of The Jewish War ascribed to Rufinus, and the sixth-century
translation of the Jewish Antiquities made at the behest of
Cassiodorus. Printed only 14 years after Gutenberg's Bible, it is the
first dated book of the printer J. Schüssler in Augsburg. In conformity
with the still-living manuscript tradition, hand-illuminated initials in
red, green, blue, and gold leaf were added in this copy after the
printing of the Gothic-character book was completed.
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DESCRIBING EDITION ABOVE
First Edition of Josephus’s "Jewish
Antiquities" and "Jewish War" JOSEPHUS, Flavius. De
antiquitate Judaica. [Latin translation from the Greek,
commissioned by Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus]. [And:]
De bello Judaico. [Latin translation from the Greek,
attributed to Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquilea]. [Augsburg:
Johann Schüssler, 28 June-23 August 1470]. First edition of
Josephus’s "Jewish Antiquities" and "Jewish War." Two parts
in one large folio volume (15 1/2 x 11 5/8 inches; 393 x 295
mm.). [286] (of 288) leaves. Bound without the initial blank
leaf and the first (contents) leaf. Gothic type. Double
columns. Fifty lines. Capital spaces. Many manuscript
signatures and catchwords preserved. Twenty-seven large
initials supplied in red, with red (seventeen), blue
(seven), or brown (three) penwork decoration. Smaller
initials, paragraph marks, and headings in red. Late
nineteenth-century half brown hard-grain morocco over
marbled boards. Spine decoratively tooled in blind and
lettered in gilt in compartments. Marbled endpapers. A few
leaves with original leather markers at fore-edge. Short
repaired tears on 5/9 (just entering text) and on 23/9 and
24/1 (not affecting text), a few additional minor marginal
tears or paper flaws, minor worming at beginning and end,
slight dust soiling to first and last leaves. An excellent
copy, fresh and unpressed. From the library of A. Edward
Newton, with his bookplate on front pastedown, ink
annotations on front free endpaper, and a typed slip signed
by him and dated March 1930 laid in. Booklabel of Abel E.
Berland on front pastedown. This copy formerly belonged to
the Franciscan Priory at Bamberg (early ink inscription on
verso of last leaf). Jewish historian Flavius Josephus
(37-after 93 A.D.) "visited Rome in early adulthood,
returning to Jerusalem in 66 on the eve of the Jewish Revolt
against Roman domination. He tried to persuade the
nationalist leaders that war with Rome could lead only to
disaster, but without success. When the revolt broke out in
the same year, Josephus was given command of Galilee by the
Sanhedrin. He survived the siege of Jotapata and was
captured; his life was spared when he prophesied to the
Roman commander Vespasian that he would become emperor, but
he was kept in captivity until his prediction was fulfilled
in 69. After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 he did what he
could to help his Jewish friends. Subsequently he settled in
Rome, where he received Roman citizenship, a house, and a
pension. His first work, Bellum Iudaicum (‘history of the
Jewish War against the Romans’), in seven books, was
originally written in Aramaic for circulation among the Jews
who settled in Mesopotamia after the Diaspora, and later
translated into Greek (Jerome called him ‘the Greek Livy’).
The first part of the Bellum Iudaicum deals with the history
of the Jews during the two hundred years or so before the
revolt; the rest is devoted to the events of the war, many
of which he witnessed in person. It ends with the capture of
Masada. His next work was Antiquitates Iudaicae (‘Jewish
archaeology’) in twenty books, a history of the Jews from
Adam to AD 66, giving a fuller account than the Bellum
Iudaicum of the events covered by the latter work" (The
Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature). This
first edition of any of the works of Josephus consists of
the fourth-century Latin translation of "The Jewish War
"ascribed to Rufinus, and the sixth-century translation of
the "Jewish Antiquities" made at the behest of Cassiodorus.
The first edition of the Greek text did not appear in print
until nearly seventy-five years later (Basel: 1544). The
first dated book produced by Augsburg’s second printer,
Johann Schüssler.
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