[Early World Map] Macrobius Aurelius integer nitidus suoque decori ab Ioanne Rivio superioribus annis & nunc cura Ascensianorum multo diligentius restitutus [Somnium Scipionis / Commentary on the Dream of Scipio]

With Early Woodcut Circular World Map Very early Macrobius edition printed by Badius (after the first Badius edition of 1515), with a new introduction dated 1519, and with the addition of De die natali by Censo. Small folio. Contemporary blind-stamped tawed pigskin, sewn on double cords. Elaborately stamped in blind. Panel decorated with fluerons and portrait medallions. Endpapers renewed. Some wear to spine extremities and corners. Foliation: 5 unnumbered leaves, 100 numbered (Roman) leaves (without the last blank leaf). Collation: A-M8 N9 (lacks only final blank N10). Title within woodcut architectural border, with woodcut printer's device plus 16 woodcuts within text (some repeated), including a world map on f. XXII (with red outline hand color), and a diagram map of the five climatic zones on f. XX. A few defects to text leaves only: small notch cut from fore-edge margin of f. LXIII (printing unaffected); tiny burn hole to f. XCII (affecting a few letters of text); final two leaves (f. XCIX and f. C.) with paper damage causing some loss to text in lower part (f. XCIX) and upper fore edge margin (f. C). Some moderate dampstaining to lower portions of final dozen leaves. Occasional ink marginalia in an early hand. Overall quite clean internally, especially the leaves with the map and woodcuts. A nice example in a handsome early pigskin binding with a sharp clean impression of the circular world map. Ownership name in upper margin of title page: "Per Hierta / 1887." With Early Woodcut Circular World Map Very early Macrobius edition printed by Badius (after the first Badius edition of 1515), with a new introduction dated 1519, and with the addition of De die natali by Censorinus. The book is notable for its beautiful large woodcut map of the world on the recto of leaf XXII. The volume begins with the commentary on the Somnium Scipionis from Cicero's De republica, a work widely read in the Middle Ages (leaves I-XXVII). This is followed by the Saturnalia, a dialogue divided into seven books that purports to be a conversation between distinguished Romans at a Saturnalia banquet in the house of Vettius Praetextatus in 384 (leaves XXVIII-XCI). At the end is Censorinus, De die natali (leaves XCII-C). Macrobius's commentary on Cicero was "the most satisfactory and widely read Latin compendium on Neoplatonism that existed during the Middle Ages," with "lengthy excursuses on Pythagorean number lore, cosmography, world geography and the harmony of the spheres" (DSB). World Map - with "Perusta" (burnt up) zone The circular "zonal" world map - differing from Ptolemy's concept in that the world - is divided into climatic zones: a northern inhabited continent separated by an ocean from a southern continent. The polar regions are uninhabitable "frigida" zones of extreme cold. The middle zone is labeled "Perusta" (or burnt up) and separates the inhabitable areas of the world from the unknown southern continent. Macrobius adopted the Zonal concept and believed that a great equatorial ocean divided the earth into four quarters. This ocean flowed into two great circles, one north to south, and one east to west, and the collision of these flows was thought to be the cause of the rise and fall of the tides. 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 - Moecker. Mike Moecker praises the wood block map used in the Badius editions: In 1515 Badius had a new block cut for his Paris editions. This block was used for all three Badius editions (1515, 1519, 1524) and was extremely well executed - Moecker. This particular version of the map is not recorded in S.…