Aurelii prudentii Clementis V.C. Opera omnia nunc primum cum codd. Vaticanis collata praefatione, variantibus lectionibus, notis, ac rerum verborumque indice locupletissimo aucta et illustrata. by Prudentius Clemens, Aurelius - 1788

Parmae: Ex Regio typographeo, 1788. 4to (31.5 cm, 12.5"). 2 vols. I: [12], 71, [1], 302, [2], [303]–61, [3] pp. II: [4], 215, [1], 219–84, [2] pp. (text complete despite pagination).

First edition of Prudentius from the Bodoni press. Prudentius (348 – ca. 410) was a Roman Christian poet born in Northern Spain, known for the asceticism he adopted late in life as well as for his lyric (Cathemerinon, Peristephanon), didactic (Apotheosis, Hamartigenia, Psychomachia), and polemical works (Contra Symmachum). The Psychomachia is particularly notable as one of the earliest Western examples of allegorical verse, exerting much influence on the subsequent medieval development of that genre.
    This is a typically handsome Bodoni production with wide margins, an elegant type, and a different engraved vignette on each title-page; Dibdin calls it “one of the most beautiful editions of a classical author I ever beheld.”
    
    Brooks, Compendiosa Bibliografia di Edizioni Bodoniane, 361; Brunet, IV, 916; Dibdin, II, 360–61; Graesse 467. On Prudentius, see: Catholic Encyclopedia online. Recent half vellum and paper–covered sides, vellum edges graced with gilt single fillet, spines with gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels and with gilt-stamped Greek key design; binding discolored and a little bubbled from proximity to fire. Edges untrimmed, signatures unopened; vol. I with surprisingly various old waterstaining, sometimes faint and sometimes not, in upper margins of first half and outer margins of last few leaves. Interior of both volumes otherwise clean, with no markings, save that the endpapers are smudged and those untrimmed edges, plus occasional small areas of margin contiguous, are darkly smokestained from that fire. => This is a book that has suffered, yet a production that is still as lovely as Dibdin said it was and a set well worth having.