Beschreibung:

AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius (Saint, 354-430)
De civitate Dei. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 2 October 1475.
Second Venetian edition of Augustine’s magnum opus and one of the cornerstones of Western thought. Augustine, a native of North Africa, played a pivotal role in the development of theology in the Latin-speaking world. In the Middle Ages, ‘the writings of Augustine contained perhaps the most substantial body of philosophical ideas then available in Latin’ (Kristeller). His works were central to the transmission of Platonic philosophy and ‘both Luther and Calvin took Augustine as the foundation of Protestantism next to the Bible itself’ (PMM). This, his greatest work, was written in the wake of the fall of Rome, contrasting the fallible and frangible world of empire with the enduring eternity of the city of God. HC *2051; GW 2879; BMC V 175; Bod-inc A-522; BSB-Ink A-858; Goff A-1235; ISTC ia01235000; Kristeller, ‘Augustine and the Early Renaissance,’ Studies in Renaissance Thought and Letters, I, (1956) and PMM 3 (first edition).
Chancery folio (280 x 201mm). 302 leaves (of 306, without the blanks). Rubricated and with initials in red and blue throughout (first two leaves with minor marginal repairs, a few faint marginal stains). 18th-century morocco, borders lined and tooled in gilt, green morocco spine labels lettered in gilt (very faintly rubbed and marked, minor wormholes to spine). Provenance: some early marginal annotations and manicules – Doria family, counts of Montaldeo, engraved armorial bookplates of ‘Johannis Caroli de Auria ex comitibus Montis Aldei’ and ‘Georgij et Ambrosii de Auria, marchionum Montis Aldei’ – by descent.