(Antwerp: C. Plantin, (15 Calendas Julii), 1575).

AN ABSOLUTELY SPLENDID COPY OF A CORNERSTONE WORK IN THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE, AND A CLASSIC OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED WITH HIGHLY IMPORTANT ENGRAVINGS. The illuminations of the Vatican manuscript (Vat. Cod. Lat. 3225) were commissioned by Cardinal Massimi as engravings, to be executed by Pietro Santi Bartoli (1635-1700). They were first published (56 plates) in ca. 1677, and were later subsumed into various of Santi Bartoli's works and published in 1725, 1741 (with text by Bottari), and later. It is one of a whole series of such engravings produced by Santi Bartoli. Only one copy of the original edition exists in the UK, at Balliol College, Oxford.
The editor of this beautifully printed and eminently useable edition of Virgil ('the first modern Virgil commentary') is Germain Vaillant de Guélis (1516-87) who was bishop of Orleans 1585-87. From his pen are the liminary verses of dedication addressed to Elisabeth of Austria (1554-92) wife of Charles IX of France (November 1570), on her coming into France. In these he speaks of himself as from Paimpont in Brittany 'vel talia praemia Pimplae, /Una me mysten, manique poema Maronis/Do tibi...'. He belonged to the circle of poets which includes Ronsard, Baif, Grevin and Dorat, Turnebus, and is referred to in some verses by François de Thoor de Bailleul (Franciscus Thorius) as 'et singulièrement/ Ce Paimpont, colonel de la roche jumelle'(i.e. Parnassus). An appendix containing textual commentary and corrections by the celebrated classical philologist Joseph Justus Scaliger is of note. During the Renaissance, Virgil was one of the most studied classical authors, and scholars like Scaliger worked to correct the Latin text using ancient manuscripts. Plantin’s Antwerp press was one of the most important publishing houses in Europe during the late sixteenth century, renowned for high-quality printing and influential editions of classical texts.
The Eclogues,also called the Bucolics, is the first of the three major works of Virgil. Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offering a dramatic and mythic interpretation of revolutionary change at Rome in the turbulent period between roughly 44 and 38 BC. Virgil introduced political clamor largely absent from Theocritus' poems, called idylls ('little scenes' or 'vignettes'), The book contains ten pieces, each called not an idyll but an eclogue, from the Greek ἐκλογή ('selection', 'extract').The poems are populated by and large with herdsmen imagined conversing and performing singing in rural settings, whether suffering or embracing revolutionary change or happy or unhappy love. Performed with great success on the Roman stage, they feature a mix of visionary politics and eroticism that made Virgil a celebrity in his own lifetime. Like all of Virgil's works, the Eclogues are composed in dactylic hexameters
The Georgics, a poem by Virgil, was likely published in 29 BC. As the name suggests (from the Greek word γεωργικά, geōrgiká, i.e. "agricultural [things]"),the subject of the poem is agriculture; but far from being an example of peaceful rural poetry, it is a work characterized by tensions in both theme and purpose. The Georgics is considered Virgil's second major work, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. The poem draws on a variety of prior sources and has influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present.
The Aeneid, an epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. Written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, the Aeneid comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of its twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the latter six tell of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.
The hero Aeneas was already known to Graeco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad. Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome, and his description as a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous pietas, and fashioned the Aeneid into a compelling founding myth or national epic that tied Rome to the legends of Troy, explained the Punic Wars, glorified traditional Roman virtues, and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes, and gods of Rome and Troy.
The Aeneid is widely regarded as Virgil's masterpiece and one of the greatest works of Latin literature.
The text of the Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid is broken into manageable 'gobbets' of between a dozen and twenty lines, and the commentary is printed after, beginning below but sometimes carrying on to the top of the next page. Occasionally the editor shows himself very aware of contemporary happenings. Thus, when discussing Aen. ii 234 'Dividimus muros, & moenia pandimus urbis' he refers to Book I of Vitruvius, a reference given by his great friend Tidius Gisius, refers to the reconstruction of the walls of Orleans 'post ciuile bellum' at the order of the king and quotes his own Greek verses addressed 'ad equum Durateum' ('to the wooden horse').
Reference is also made to 'noster Thorius' who has been mentioned already (see Geneviéve Demerson. 'L'expression poétique de la foi Le cas de Franciscus Thorius Bellio' in Gros, G. editor. La Bible et ses raisons: diffusion et distortions du discours religieux pp. 113-126).

Provenance: Richard Bentley (1662-1742) classical scholar, and Master of Trinity, with his signature on the title-page; Macclesfield North Library 74.H.2. This copy belonged to the Earl of Macclesfield, a title was first granted in 1721 to Thomas Parker, a Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. In 1860, the title Earl of Macclesfield was held by Thomas Augustus Wolstenholme Parker, 6th Earl of Macclesfield. The Macclesfield family seat was Shirburn Castle, well known for its large historic library, which contained many humanist and classical books marked with the armorial bookplate like the one in this copy. The Macclesfield library at Shirburn Castle was one of Britain’s famous aristocratic collections.

C. Kallendorf, A catalogue of the Junius Spncer Morgan collection of Virgil in the Princeton University Library: Delaware: Oak Knoll, 2009, no L1575.3. Adams v. 2, 506; BMC v. 249, 471; Bib. Nat. 212, 72; Voet, The Plantin Press (1555-1589) 2453; Thomas, Richard F. Georgics Vol.I: Books I–II. Cambridge, 1988;. Item #34765

The very fine Plantin printing, EXTRA ILLUSTRATED. With the "First Modern Virgil Commentary and with FINE PROVENANCE, The Macclesfield Copy. Historiated initials (Q dated 1563). A splendid copy, extra-illustrated with 56 plates (almost all illustrating the Aeneid) taken from Pietro Santi Bartoli's 'Iconicae figurae quae in vetustissimo codice Virgiliano bibliothecae Vaticanae annum supra millesimum scripto et depicto visuntur', the title-page of which is affixed to the verso of the title-leaf. All illustrations are lettered in ink as to where they should be placed throughout the text of Virgil and many have tucked into the gutter 'captions' in both pencil and ink, outlining events or naming the figures depicted. This may well have been done in about 1760 in common with a few other books from the Macclesfield Library. Folio (317 x 213mm.), very handsomely bound in 18th century English polished calf, elaborate gilt rolled border to the covers, the spine fully gilt, compartments especially so between raised bands gilt tooled, marbled endpapers, the edges speckled red, an excellent binding. [12], 630, [2], [14], 98, [4] pp. A splendid copy, the text-block crisp and clean and unpressed, the binding strong and in good order, a very substantial and splendid copy.