1543 Lucanus. Lucan, Pharsalia or De Bello Civili. Simon de Colines, Paris.

A 1543 Simon de Colines printing of Lucan's Pharsalia, or De Bello Civili, a Roman epic poem centered on the civil war between Julius Caesar and the Roman Senate.

"The poem was begun around AD 61 and several books were in circulation before the Emperor Nero and Lucan had a bitter falling out. Lucan continued to work on the epic – despite Nero's prohibition against any publication of Lucan's poetry – and it was left unfinished when Lucan was compelled to suicide as part of the Pisonian conspiracy in AD 65. In total, ten books were written and all survive; the tenth book breaks off abruptly with Caesar in Egypt." - Wikipedia

As explained by commentator Philip Hardie in 2013: "In recent decades, (Pharsalia) has undergone a thorough critical re-evaluation, to re-emerge as a major expression of Neronian politics and aesthetics, a poem whose studied artifice enacts a complex relationship between poetic fantasy and historical reality.” (Hardie, p225, 225)

This is the only 16mo (smaller sized) edition of de Colines, following two 8vo printings in 1528 and 1537.

Brunet (in the Manuel de Libraire, V.3, column 1200, 1862) said about Colines' editions, "Three decent and fairly rare editions, but at a mediocre price" (translated from the French).

About the Printer (edited from Wikipedia) -
Simon de Colines (c. 1480 – 1546) was a Parisian printer and one of the first printers of the French Renaissance. He was active in Paris as a printer and worked exclusively for the University of Paris from 1520 to 1546. In addition to his work as a printer, Colines worked as an editor, publisher, and punchcutter.   Over the course of his lifetime, he published over 700 separate editions (almost 4% of books published in 16th-century Paris).   Colines used elegant roman and italic types and a Greek type, with accents, that were superior to their predecessors. These are now called French old-style, a style that remained popular for over 200 years and revived in the early 20th century.

Reference -

USTC records 13 copies in the world's libraries as 149036, 200457 and 200458; copies at the BNF, Trinity College, Bodleian, Houghton (Cambridge), Beinecke (Yale) among others.

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 11.5 x 7.5 x 2 cm. Signed in eight. Calf binding. Boards with two frames of triple blind fillet, inner frame with corner florets, and central interlocking arabesque stamp in blind. Spine with three raised bands; four compartments with a central floret in blind. Text block edges washed with an ink. Title page with a decorative frame.

Pages - 1-152, [2]

Collation – a-t8 (t8 blank)

Condition -

See pictures. Binding with wear to joints, rubbing, wear to edges and corners, etc. Spine chipped at top. Ties expired. Crazing at joints. No binder’s endpapers. Pastedown darkened.

Text block with some toning throughout; occasional dog-eared page, page edge chip, thumb, fox spot, etc. From title page to page 35 ink mark at top margin touching frame of title page and page numbers. Occasional underlining and annotation in ink. Ink smudge on p.2 recto. Occasional moisture mark from edges, possibly from the wash applied to the text block edges. 1” tear from bottom edge of page 97. Ink at top edge reappears at end.