Fabulae centum ex antiquis auctoribus delectae [...] Carminibus Explicatae,

Bookseller Notes

Scarce first edition of this cornerstone of the fable genre. One hundred fables, collected and translated by the humanist scholar Gabriele Faerno (1510-61). This compendium was commissioned by Pius IV, and published posthumously after editing by S. Antoniano. Most of the fables are from Aesop, some come from other classical sources, and a handful are contemporary, such as the Tale of the drowned Woman and her Husband, and The Miller, his Son and the Donkey. The work influenced Perrault and other fabulists.The origin of the numbered illustrations has been the subject of much speculation; for a time they were thought to be after designs by Raphael, and were later attributed to Titian. They are now believed to be the work of Faerno's friend and associate Pirro Ligorio. An old catalogue description, tipped in, laments the shaky execution of some of the etchings: 'It really is a pity, that the printer of the plates was not a better craftsman, as all copies of this book contain, like ours, bad or weak impressions together with fairly good or good ones. Of course the illustration of books with copperplate, which wanted an entirely new technique of printing, was not at all customary in this early period [...] It is not quite so surprising therefore, that these early attempts were not all successful.' Mortimer concurs: 'several of the plates having slipped in the press'. The illustrations are no less charming for their varying quality, and are very expressive. A very attractive copy, in a contemporary Italian binding, of this important work.See: Erna Mandowsky, 'Pirro Ligorio's Illustrations to Aesop's Fables' Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, v. 24, 1961, p. 327-331