PORPHYRIUS, Publilius Optatianus

Panegyricus dictus Constantino Augusto Augsburg, à l'enseigne du pin, 1595 COPY GOMEZ DE LA CORTINA THEN MICHEL DE BRY. ELEGANT BINDING WITH LONG TITLE First separate edition. The poem appeared for the first time in a collective edition, in the format in-12, in 1590 In-4 (298 x 194mm). Engraved initials, roman and italic characters, latin and greek COLLATION : A2 B-F4 G-I2 : 28 leaves ILLUSTRATION : nineteen poems out of twenty-six enhanced, at the time, with hand-drawn lines of red paint FRENCH BINDING OF THE 18th CENTURY ATTRIBUTABLE TO DEROME. Red morocco, gilded fillets in frame, long spine decorated with vertical titling, gilded edges PROVENANCE: Joaquín Gomez de la Cortina, Marquis de Morante (1808-1868; ex-libris; his sale, Paris, 22 February 1872, n° 929, which attributes the binding to Derome) - Michel de Bry (1890-1970; ex-libris; his sale, Paris, 6 December 1966, n° 163) Some foxing This eulogy in verse to the glory of Constantine was written around 330 by the poet Porfirius. It is a first production of the printing house "ad insigne pinus" (under the pine tree sign) founded in 1594 by the Augsburg humanist Markus Welser and the scholar David Hoeschel. These logogriphic poems (λόγος: word and γρìφος: riddle) are at the crossroads of Greek technopaegnia (such as Simmias of Rhodes' The Wings of Icarus, dating from the 4th century BCE) and medieval carmina figurata. These poem-drawings, later called calligrams, are reminiscent of mosaic art. The most remarkable of them (IV) draws a galley whose mast is made of the monogram of Christ. Opposite each acrostic poem is its linear transcription. The few copies offered for sale in the last fifty years were either in modern bindings or in calfskin. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brunet, IV, col. 824 -- Antoine Coron, Avant Apollinaire, vingt siècles de poèmes figurés, Paris, 2005