” Homer is the immense poet child. The world is born, Homer sings. He is the bird of this dawn. Homer has the sacred candor of the morning. He almost ignores the shadow… Homer is one of the geniuses who solve this beautiful problem of art, perhaps the most beautiful of all, the true depiction of humanity achieved by the magnification of man, that is to say, the generation of the real in the ideal.
Fable and history, hypothesis and tradition, chimera and science, all compose Homer..
IHe is bottomless, and he is smiling. TAll the depths of the old ages move,
radiantly illuminated, in the vast azure of this mind. ” Victor Hugo.
Amsterdam, 1656.
The sumptuous copy of Baron de Longepierre (1659-1721) bound at the time by Boyet
en blue morocco lined with red morocco.
Homer. homeri ilias & odyssey, and in the same commentary or interpretation of Didymus. With a Latin translation very accurately, And an index Grrichly supplied Ron ac various readings. Edited by Corn. Schrevelius.
Amstelodami, from the Elzevirian Press, Year 1656.
2 volumes in-quarto. V. I: (8) ff. including the engraved title, 716 pp., V. II (dated 1655): 536 pp., (22) ff. of index. Blue morocco, emblem of the Golden Fleece at the angles, in the center and repeated four times on the spines, red morocco linings, gilded inner lace, gilded fleece in the center, gilded edges on marbling. Binding by Boyet, active under the reign of Louis XIV.
235 x 167 mm.
“Beautiful edition, whose text is based on those of Turnière and Estienne.”
Brunet III, column 272.
Greek edition, accompanied by the Latin translation.
“The greatest fact of Greek civilization remains forever this, that Homer became panhellenic so early. All the intellectual and human freedom the Greeks achieved comes back to this fact… From time to time, a protest against Homer arose from the innermost depths of Hellenism; but he always remained victorious. All great spiritual powers exert, alongside their liberating action, another depressing action; but, indeed, it makes a difference whether it is Homer or la the Bible or Science that tyrannizes humans!” Nietzsche.
“Write down on the top of a paper the name of Homer. It is the greatest name, my child. The gods would be nothing, and not only the gods, but men, if he had not sung them… Nothing is as pure as Homer… He is the greatest. He is the oldest. He is the patron. He is the father. He is the master of everything. And notably he is the master of all that has ever been greatest in the world, which is the familiar.” a Charles Péguy.
Marvelous copy specially bound by Boyet for Hilaire-Bernard de Roqueleyne, Baron de Longepierre,
” Longepierre (1659-1721) distinguished himself so much from his classmates in his classical studies that Baillet placed him among the Famous Children. He composed, as it is known, several tragedies of whichall, except his ‘Medea’,had a tragic end. The success of his ‘Medea’ made him want no other heraldic signs on his books than the Golden Fleece.
The love of books contributed perhaps more to his notoriety than his plays. The playwright is almost forgotten today, while the bibliophile remains in greatreputation among enthusiasts. ” (J. Guigard. New Armorial of the Bibliophile. Paris, 1890).
This copy was sold for 200,000 FF (30,500 €) on June 5, 1988, 34 years ago (Ref. Precious books, nº83).
Old handwritten ex-libris on the title and engraved ex-libris on the back of C.L. Robert Jardel.
