Incunable Edition of Macrobius
This incunable edition of Macrobius, issued by the Venetian printer Philippus Pincius, is of particular interest for its inclusion of a highly significant half-page circular world map. Macrobius was a fifth-century philosopher whose neoplatonic commentary on Cicero references a geographical concept differing from that of Ptolemy. The present edition includes the first appearance of this particular version of the woodblock map - it also stands as the final 15th-century printing of the map, published Oct. 29, 1500. Notably this woodblock departs from earlier incunable editions by surrounding the map with a border and fourteen windheads. It also differs from the original printed version of the map, in the 1483 Brescia edition of Macrobius, by its reversal of east and west.
The map represents a radical departure from the Ptolemaic worldview. The most notable difference between the Macrobius and the Ptolemaic maps is the connection between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans below Africa. Other important features of the map include the presence of an unknown southern continent, which would influence cartographers for two hundred further years.
The map is included here in Macrobius's commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, a semi-mythical telling of a dream by a Roman general during the Second Punic War. In the dream, the terrestrial and celestial spheres are revealed to Scipio, and he discovers that Rome is but an insignificant portion of the earth. Macrobius's first comments on Cicero's telling of the dream before interweaving the dream with extracts and interpretations of Neoplatonic thinkers, including Plotinus and Porphyry, in his Saturnia.
Macrobius adopted the Zonal concept and believed that a great equatorial ocean divided the earth into four quarters... The first printed Macrobian map from Brescia in 1483 illustrates this theory and has led to the statement that it is the first to show the ocean currents... [he] believed that there must exist additional landmasses in the remaining quarters (the west and south) of the earth as a counterbalance to the known continents of Europe, Asia, and Northern Africa (in the north and east) - Moecker.
Single Word Title Page
The title pages of incunable books, those printed up through the year 1500, often embody a striking simplicity that reflects the era’s evolving relationship with print. In the case of the present book, a single printed word—MACROBIVS—stands alone on an otherwise blank page, an austere yet deliberate choice that underscored the primacy of text itself. Without ornamentation or extraneous detail, these title pages achieved a rare typographic purity, where letterforms, often in a stately blackletter or (as here) an elegant Roman type, commanded attention through their sheer presence. At a time when books were still closely tied to manuscript traditions, such restraint in design was a testament to the weight and authority of the printed word.
Rarity
Incunable editions of Macrobius with the world map are fairly scarce in the market, especially in such nice condition.