M. Annei Lucani Cordubensis Pharsalia diligentissime per. G. Versellanum recognita a.k.a. Lucan's Pharsalia by Lucan a.k.a. Marcus Annaeus Lucanus - 1525: Marcus Annaeus Lucanus a.k.a. Lucan of Cordova's Pharsalia diligently and carefully edited by G. Versallanum

M. Annei Lucani Cordubensis Pharsalia diligentissime per. G. Versellanum recognita. Mediolani Impressum p. lo. angelu Scinzenzler, Anno dni. M.D.XXV.

translates: Marcus Annaeus Lucanus a.k.a. Lucan of Cordova's Pharsalia diligently and carefully edited by G. Versallanum. Milan: Printed by Angelo Scinzenzer, 1525. Woodcut title page + 10 books, each with a woodcut illustration beginning each book and numerous woodcut initials. 10 preliminaries (unpaginated) and 261 numbered leaves or 522 pages.

Size and Binding: Small Folio, measuring 12" x 9" x 2" (30.5x32x5cm) 20th-century hardcover binding, colored cardboard and tan-colored leather spine.

Collation: 10 preliminaries and 522 pages numbered by leaf as follows: blank (not period paper; the original pages begin with the title page); Title Page (woodcut and letterpress), Dedication? (verso of title page), Tabula Alphabetica. (Alphabetical Table), Annei Lucani Vita (Life of Annaeus Lucan), Prefatio (Preface), Alphabetica., Annei Lucani Vita/Poete Vita (the life and poetry of Lucan), Main Text (numbered by leaf as 1-260 or 520 pages.), colophon (leaf 261), Poete Vita (page 522).

Condition: about good+ to very good. A mostly good copy, main shortcomings are the first and last leaves. Corner 1.5" triangular chip to the upper right-hand corner of the title page, only going into the decorative border slightly, fraying to bottom leaves, not affecting text, fraying ends around leaf 47, some damp-staining and some darkened leaves here and there, and some wormholes beginning leaf 236. Most pages from leaf 48 through 235 are quite clean and bright. Not a bad copy of what appears to be an extremely rare book.

Pharsalia or De Bello Civili (On the Civil War), more commonly referred to as the Pharsalia, is a Roman epic poem by the poet Lucan (39-65 CE), detailing the civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great. The poem's title is a reference to the Battle of Pharsalus, which occurred in 48 BC, near Pharsalus, Thessaly, in northern Greece. Caesar decisively defeated Pompey in this battle, which occupies all of the epic's seventh book. In the early twentieth century, translator J. D. Duff, while arguing that "no reasonable judgment can rank Lucan among the world's great epic poets", notes that the work is notable for Lucan's decision to eschew divine intervention and downplay supernatural occurrences in the events of the story. Scholarly estimation of Lucan's poem and poetry has since changed, as explained by commentator Philip Hardie in 2013: "In recent decades, it has undergone a thorough critical re-evaluation, to re-emerge as a major expression of Neronian politics and aesthetics, a poem whose studied artifice enacts a complex relationship between poetic fantasy and historical reality."

NOTE: The pictures are of the actual item for sale. (The pictures are NOT stock photos.)