Terenti[us] cu[m] directorio vocabuloru[m] sententiaru[m] artis comice glosa i[n]terlineali come[n]tarijs Donato Guidone Ascensio.
Terence (c.190-159 BC)
Category
Books
Date
1499
Materials
Place of origin
Strasbourg
Order this imageCollection
Blickling Hall, Norfolk
NT 3008549
Caption
Publius Terentius Afer, usually referred to simply as Terence, was a Roman playwright who lived in the 2nd century BCE. As his cognomen (third name) suggests, he was from Africa, possibly Carthage, and was brought to Rome as an enslaved person. He was later freed by the senator who enslaved him, impressing him with his learning and intellect. Terence’s early death while still in his twenties cut short his career, but the six plays that he wrote were incredibly popular. His work became a central part of Roman literature, and were important educational texts in Europe for centuries. His texts were a recurring feature of the early days of the printing press – his name is associated with 132 surviving publications printed before 1501, and his popularity can be seen in the over 150 examples of his works in libraries across the National Trust. This edition of Terence’s plays was printed in Strasbourg in 1499 and is lavishly decorated. One of the woodcuts illustrating his play, 'The Eunuch', depicts the character of a young enslaved Ethiopian woman and is among the earliest printed representations of a black person. Over the years there has been much speculation about the colour of Terence’s skin and the accuracy of his biographies (Afer, for example, does not always mean that the named individual is from Africa). Regardless, his African identity, his emancipation, his intelligence, his prominent African name and his famous line, 'Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto' – quoted by the African-American poet, Maya Angelou, as ‘I am a human being: nothing human can be alien to me’ – have ensured his symbolic and pioneering status among early African writers.
Summary
An edition of Terence’s plays, printed in Strasbourg in 1499. The book is decorated and hand-coloured throughout and includes some early signs of Netherlandish provenance. Its leather binding dates from the eighteenth century.
Bibliographic description
[6], CLXXXI [i.e. CLXXII] leaves : ill. (woodcut) ; fol. Running number: 6960. Imperfect: wanting leaf a6. Quire k wrongly folded: in order 1, 3 (with contemporary manuscript note), 2, 5, 4, 6. Decoration: fifteen-line initial "S" on b1r supplied in red (the red lead pigment is partly oxidised and is now silver-black) embellished with pen-work decoration in brown ink; most other initials supplied in red (many partly or wholly oxidised) throughout; some initials supplied in red with reserved white decoration (f2r, f3v, m2v, m5v, C4r, F3v); some initials with additional pen-work decoration and flourishes (f2r, x5r - a face, A2r, A2v); some initials with black outline (n3v, n6r, s2r, x5r); capital strokes and paragraph marks supplied in red throughout. Title page and many woodcut illustrations partially hand-coloured in brown and purple or red. Occasional manuscript marginal annotations, interlinear additions/corrections to the printed text and underlining of text (e.g. b2v-4r, b6v-7r, f1v, l3v, l5r, r3v-r4r), written in an early sixteenth-century hand. Provenance: manuscript inscription in an early seventeenth-century[?] hand on title page (partially cropped by binder?): "Philebe Ulgher" [possibly Philibert Ulger van Noordijck, of Zwolle?]. Library of Sir Richard Ellys (1682-1742) of Nocton, Lincolnshire. Binding: eighteenth-century full mottled calf; sewn on six supports; double and single blind fillet border; gilt roll pattern on board edges; gold-tooled spine; brown leather title label on spine: 'Terent Comment'; bookblock edges painted red; comb and swirl pattern marbled endpapers.
Makers and roles
Terence (c.190-159 BC), author Johannes Curtus (fl. 1493-1512), editor Aelius Donatus, commentator Guy Jouenneaux (d.1507), commentator Josse Badius (1462-1535), commentator Giovanni Calfurnio (d.1503), commentator Gaius Sulpicius Apollinaris, commentator Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374, author Jacob Locher (1471-1528), author Volcacius Sedigitus (fl. 100 B.C.), author Heinrich Bebel (1472-1518), author Johann Grüninger (d.1532?), printer