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Hierocles of Alexandria: : [Greek title] Hieroclis Philosophi commentarius in aura Pythagoreorum carmina. Ioan. Curterio interprete. [...] Parisiis [Paris], Apud Nicolaum Nivellium [...] [bound with] Aurea Pythagoreorum Carmina. Latinè conversa, multisque in locis emendata, illustratáque adnotationibus ... auctore Theodoro Marcilio

Two works bound in one volume: 12mo, pp. xxiv, 347, [i]. 12mo, pp. [ii], 11, [xi], 90. Old ink-burn D11-E9 in the first work (ie pp. 93-114), particularly noticeable E3-E6. Second work lacks two of the final leaves of text. (Text concludes with the errata on verso of H1; H2 and H3 have been extracted; H4, blank as called for by Adams, is present.). Greek and Latin text. Contemporary limp vellum. Two early ownership inscriptions on title. The clearer of the two reads “Ex libris Ioa. Maussaci” in an early seventeenth century hand, possibly Philippe Jacques de Maussac (1590-1650), president in Montpellier and a Greek scholar (he edited Harpocration in 1614, cf. Sandys II, p. 287).

First edition of the commentary on the Golden Verses of ‘Pythagorus’ by the fifth-century Neoplatonist Hierocles, discovered in the library of François de la Rochefoucauld-Randan and edited and translated by Curterius; bound here with the first edition of Théodore Marcile's Latin translation. Both works were printed by Stephan Prevosteau - he is credited in the colophon of the first work, and a variant title page carries his imprint (Adams P2312) rather than Nivelle’s - and pairings of the works are not unknown. The example in the recently dispersed Macclesfield library (lot 2711 in part 8, October 2006) was similarly bound in limp vellum, and issuing them together may have been Prevosteau’s own recommendation to his clients., Adams P2313 & P2314; Brunet III, 154-155; Sandys II, 105.

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