III. Paper and format

Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Aulus Persius Flaccus. Satyrarum libri V. Ed. Theodorus Pulmannus.– Anvers: Christophe Plantin, 1566. In-16.

Id. Anvers [=Leyde]: Christophe Plantin, 1585. in-24.

The acerbic satires of the popular Juvenal had been published many times in the Low Countries since the beginning of printing, generally in 8° format intended for students at colleges and universities or in smaller formats (16° or 24°) for learned readers, but the same earlier versions were republished from one edition to the next.

   From the 1560s, Plantin expanded the contents of the small formats intended for scholars by promoting, beginning with the title page and the preliminaries (dedications, prefaces), the philological approach of the new humanist editors by adding critical apparatus of sources, marginal notes and lists of variants of the text. Pulmannus also published Lucan, Suetonius and Prudentius with Plantin, thus announcing an important future series of classics published by the best humanists of the Low Countries, such as Andreas Schott and Justius Lipsius. Nevertheless, due to less favourable economic conditions, Plantin also offered a more traditional republication of Juvenal by Pulmannus, without critical apparatus and in a truly ‘pocket-size’ format.

Cultura Fonds: LC 256 (in-16)

Cultura Fonds: LC 259 (in-24)