Classical Comedy in a Distinguished Sixteenth-Century Painted Binding
Publius Terentius Afer. Comoediae [sex]. Paris, Michel Vascosan, 1545.
A remarkably elegant Paris edition of Terence’s six comedies, preserved in an exceptional contemporary French binding with richly painted wax mosaic decoration in green, red, black, and white. The volume later entered the celebrated library of the Earls of Sunderland before passing through some of the great bibliophilic collections of England and Belgium.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
A–B8 C6, A–C8, A–C8, A–B8 C6, A–B8 C4, A–B8 C6 = together 134 leaves.
With pale red ruling throughout and several initials in metalcut and woodcut, some on criblé grounds.
Quarto (228 × 162 mm). Printed entirely in an elegant and highly legible italic type by the important Paris printer Michel Vascosan.
Unlike many earlier editions of Terence filled with commentary and scholarly apparatus, this edition presents the plays almost entirely as pure literary text — pura oratio — closely aligned with Terence’s own ideal of refined, elevated speech.
Physical Description & Binding
Contemporary brown calf over five raised bands, lavishly gilt and decorated with wax-colour mosaic painting in green, red, black, and white. Gilt board edges, gilt turn-ins, and fully gilt edges with the title “TERENTIVS” lettered across the fore-edge. Spine and endleaves renewed in the nineteenth century; minor rubbing to covers; ties removed; title lightly finger-soiled.
The binding is among the most remarkable surviving examples of mid-sixteenth-century Parisian decorative bookbinding. The intricate interlaced strapwork appears almost to visualize the theatrical intrigues of Terence’s comedies themselves, while remaining rigorously symmetrical in construction. The colour scheme — black and white heightened with vivid red and green — produces an unusually sophisticated ornamental effect.
Stylistically, the binding belongs firmly within the tradition of refined Parisian bindings of the 1550s and may be compared with examples reproduced by Geoffrey Hobson and with bindings from the library of Dr. Lucien-Graux.
Terence and the Ideal of Humanitas
Terence, born in Carthage and later enslaved in Rome before gaining his freedom, became one of antiquity’s most influential comic playwrights. Closely associated with the circle of Scipio Aemilianus, his works embodied an ideal of cultivated humanitas rooted in psychological subtlety, moral refinement, and elegant language rather than theatrical spectacle.
His most famous line — “Homo sum: humani a me nihil alienum puto” (“I am human; nothing human is alien to me”) — became one of the defining statements of classical humanism. Unlike Plautus, Terence rejected crude comic effects and dramatic excess, favouring instead nuanced dialogue and emotional intelligence.
The present edition reflects precisely that literary refinement. The absence of commentary, illustrations, or scholastic additions transforms the volume into a pure reading text intended for cultivated private study rather than classroom annotation.
From Renaissance Paris to the Great English Libraries
By the seventeenth or eighteenth century, the volume had entered one of the greatest aristocratic libraries in Britain: that of the Earls of Sunderland at Althorp and later Blenheim Palace. The Sunderland library was already famous around 1700 and counted among the most important private collections in Europe.
The book later passed through the hands of Bernard Quaritch, Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton — whose collection was particularly rich in historical bindings — before entering the collection of Charles van der Elst, president of the Société royale des bibliophiles et iconophiles de Belgique.
Provenance
Earls of Sunderland; sold London, 1883, lot 12135, purchased by Bernard Quaritch for £23.
Bookplate of Charles Isaac Elton (1839–1900) and Mary Augusta Elton (1838–1914).
Sotheby’s, London, 20 June 1960.
Monogram stamp of Charles van der Elst (1904–1982).
Sotheby’s, London, 22–23 November 1984 (£3,960 to Alan Thomas).
Published in Tenschert XIX: Schöne Einbände, no. 7.
European private collection.
Literature
Not in Adams or BM STC French; Schweiger II/2, 1059.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, lot 83:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume II
