FLAVIUS JOSÈPHE. Lot n° 9

De antiquitate judaica. De bello judaico. Verona, Peter Maufer for Innocente Ziletti, December 25, 1480, folio, red morocco half-basin, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets, spotted edges (Binding circa 1800). Fourth collective edition, the first printed in Italy. The first edition of the Antiquities of the Jews and the Jewish War was published in Augsburg in 1470, followed by two others around 1475 in Lübeck and in the Southern Netherlands; the Roman edition published in 1475 contained only the Jewish War. The Latin translation of the works of Flavius Josephus, who wrote in Greek, is traditionally attributed to Rufinus of Aquileia. The present edition, published in Verona by the humanist Ludovico Cendrata, also contains the editio princeps of the treatise Against Apion, the last work of Josephus, in which he defends the antiquity of the people of Israel, disputed by Greek historians, and presents Judaism as a religion and a classical philosophy. Sumptuous incunabula printing in round letters. This is the only book printed by Pierre Maufer de Maliferis during his stay in Verona. The French typographer, originally from Rouen, worked first in Padua, between 1473 and 1480, then in Venice, between 1480 and 1486, but he also did some printing in Treviso, Modena, Cremona and Bologna until 1496. The copy is not rubricated. The blank page following the dedication is missing, as it almost always is. Mottling and traces of mildew in the margins, a few rare small marginal tears. Hinges and spine a little rubbed, paper of the boards renewed.