NEPOS (Cornelius): Emillio Probo de Gli Huomini Illustri di - Lot 46

NEPOS (Cornelius): Emillio Probo de Gli Huomini Illustri di Grecia. Tradotto per Remigio Fiorentino. Vinegia: appresso Gabriel Giolito dè Ferrari e Fratelli, 1550. In-12 19th-century half-chagrin, smooth spine decorated. 4 ff. and 72 ff. (lightly foxed). Italian translation - and apparently the only Giolito edition - of the lives of eminent Greek commanders by the Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos, falsely attributed to Aemilius Probus. The translator was a Dominican who chose not to use his real name, Remigio Nannini, in the various secular works he wrote or translated, preferring to use Fiorentino Remigio. The Lives of the Eminent Greeks are here all that survives of a much larger work by Nepos; "Most of his writings, which included poems, moral examples from history, a chronological sketch of general history, a geographical work, the Lives of Cato the Elder and Cicero and other biographies, are lost. Part of his "De Viris Illustribus" exists: (i) part of his parallel lives of famous Roman and non-Roman men, namely the part containing the lives of non-Roman generals (all but three Greek) and a chapter on kings; and (ii) two lives from the class of historians. The lives are short popular biographies of all kinds, written in a generally readable style, which have value today because of Nepos's use of many good sources" (Loeb).