BARBARO, Ermolao.

Castigationes Plinii et Pomponii Melae.

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348 leaves, 39 lines & headline, Roman & Greek type, 4-line initial spaces with printed guides. Two parts in one vol. Folio (290 x 205 mm.), 18th-cent. French red morocco (minor rubbing, first & last leaves with some inoffensive worming & soiling, minor dampstaining to a few leaves), triple gilt fillet round sides, spine richly gilt, a.e.g. Rome: E. Silber, 24 Nov. 1492 & 13 Feb. 1493. First edition of an important and massive work in the famous controversy regarding errors in Pliny, in which Leoniceno took the opposing side; this work was immediately saluted as the most authoritative discussion of Pliny’s Historia Naturalis available. Barbaro (1454–93), was one of the leaders of humanism. Crowned as a poet at the age of fourteen by Frederick III, he became a doctor at Padua in 1477, made a careful translation of Aristotle, held public office, taught Greek in public, and gathered about him the most illustrious scientists of the end of the century. In 1486, he was Venetian Ambassador to the Emperor Frederick, and in 1489 was Ambassador to Innocent VIII, who created him Cardinal and Patriarch of Aquileia. He died in 1493, leaving behind him a surprising amount of erudite work that showed a wide knowledge of Greek and of ancient literature. “In 1490 Leoniceno inaugurated a famous controversy on the errors of Pliny the elder. In this year he sent to Politian a critique of Ibn Sina, in which he noted in passing that Pliny seems to have confused the two herbs ivy and cistus because of the similarity of their Greek names; Politian commended Leoniceno’s castigation of Ibn Sina but politely challenged his criticism of Pliny. Leoniceno responded with a tract, On the errors of Pliny and others in medicine (1492), in which he not only defended his original point but charged Pliny with many other errors stemming from verbal confusion.”–D.S.B., VIII, p. 249. Leoniceno’s book aroused a great storm of protest, indignation, and malediction. In the present work, Barbaro responded indirectly. “He claimed to have freed the text from some five thousand errors of copyists and printers, but did not wish anyone to think that Pliny himself had erred and affirmed that his reputation could in no way be overthrown. Without mentioning Leonicenus by name, Barbarus expressly refuted — and that rather sharply — some of his criticisms of Pliny.”–Thorndike, IV, p. 601. A very good and fresh copy. ❧ Goff B-100. Klebs 143.1. Stillwell, The Awakening Interest in Science during the First Century of Printing, 592.

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