Beschreibung:

Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, extracts from ‘De Metallis’, in Latin, humanist manuscript on paper [Italy, c. 1450]single leaf, with single column of 20 lines in a fine humanist script (opening “Quantum feliciore …” and skipping a few lines that the copyist appears to have judged irrelevant at end of certain paragraphs, here following “… constat etiam Romae”, “…honoratissimi intelligebantur”, “… parte captae urbis delubris” and “… nec amplius fuisse”, numerous copying errors as common with this text), one small correction between lines, catchword on reverse showing this was once the last leaf of a gathering, heading in main hand at top of recto “ex LXX De Metallis” and copied again above it twice in slightly faded inks in near-contemporary hands, these adding author’s name and changing ch. to “xxxiii” (these titles perhaps suggesting that this leaf comes from a humanist miscellany), tear to outer lower corner with loss of a few words from last line, spots and stains, else in good and presentable condition, 198 by 137mm.Pliny the Elder’s Historia naturalis is one of the rarest Classical texts to appear on the market, and thus it is remarkable to be able to offer here in a single sale both a leaf containing parts of the text as well as an entire codex (see also lot 70). The leaf here contains parts of book 33, ch. 3, on gold, and the author’s condemnation of men’s love for it.