Appian (d. c. 165) - photo 1
Appian (d. c. 165) - photo 2
Appian (d. c. 165) - photo 3

Appian (d. c. 165)

Lot 29
10.12.2025 12:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1514420
Lot 29 | Appian (d. c. 165)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 7 000
Appian (d. c. 165)
Bella civilia (part of the Historiarum Romanarum libri XI), and Illyricum, translated by Pier Candido Decembrio (d. 1477), in Latin, manuscript on paper [Italy, ?Verona, third quarter 15th century]
Appian's narratives of the Roman conquests, translated by the great Italian humanist Pier Candido Decembrio and written within his lifetime.

c. 315 x 235mm, i + 106 + i leaves, collation: 1–1010 116 (of 8, lacking vii and viii), f.20 blank, catchwords throughout, 52 lines written in semi-cursive Humanistic script, ruled space: c. 215 x 120 mm, each text by a different scribe, a few side-notes, decorated with 7- to 17-line initials in red with reserved designs at the beginning of books on ff.1, 20v, 45, 60v, 81v (lacking two leaves at end, first leaf partly defective, the upper and gutter margins stained through much of the volume, not significantly affecting the legibility of the text, the final page worn, affecting legibility). Bound in plain undecorated vellum over pasteboards, the edges of the leaves pale blue; the top of the spine inscribed ‘Appaianus Alexand.’, and with an 18th/19th-century leather title-piece lettered in gilt capitals ‘Appianus / De bellis / civilibus / trans. / P. Candidus / MS. XVth cen.’, and with two circular auction lot number labels, inscribed ‘1[3?]’ and ‘121’, and the usual rectangular Phillipps label printed ‘8080’ (the vellum yellowed).

Provenance:
(1) The watermarks are first recorded by Briquet in Verona in 1450 and 1456; he states that the small group to which they belong (nos. 11733–40) remained in use for about twenty years, but even a date at the end of this period would put the present manuscript within the lifetime of the translator Pier Candido Decembrio (d. 1477), Italian humanist and author, pupil of Manuel Chrysoloras, secretary to Filippo Maria Visconti, and later in the courts of Pope Nicholas V, Alfonso the Great and Pius II. According to Kristeller's entry in Iter Italicum, the present manuscript is 'perhaps autograph'.

(2) Richard Heber (1733–1833): his sale by Evans, Bibliotheca Heberiana [...] Part the Eleventh, 10 February 1836, lot 121 (cf. spine label).

(3) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), antiquary and book collector: his MS 8080, with his inscription in ink on the front pastedown and f. 1, and his label at the base of the spine. Published in Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum in bibliotheca D. Thomæ Phillipps, Bart., 1837, p.122, no 8080. His sale, Sotheby's, Portion of the famous collection of classical, historical, topographical, genealogical and other manuscripts & autograph letters, &c. of the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, pt. 8, 15 June 1896, lot 13, then 6 June 1898, lot 29.

(4) Jacques Rosenthal (1854–1937), of Munich: Catalogus XVII Librorum universa Catholicarum et Literarum et Rerum Studia, 10 May 1899, no 2235; reoffered in Katalog 47: Bibliotheca Slavica I. [...] (1909), no 356.

(5) A. Rosenthal Ltd, London: Catalogue 1: Secular Thought in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (1939), no 2.

(6) Maggs Bros Ltd, London, Catalogue 799 (1948), no 33, priced £27 10s., with a clipping from the catalogue stuck to the front pastedown; bought the same year by:

(7) Howard Lehman Goodhart (1884-1951), stockbroker and bibliophile: his leather book label inside upper cover. By descent to his daughter:

(8) Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (1913-1994), MS 78. On deposit at Bryn Mawr, BMC 87. Published in Faye & Bond, Supplement, p.401, no 78.

Content:
The beginning slightly damaged: ‘Senatus populusque Romanus mutuis sępe contentionibus de legum latione [...] in fine prius iungendo scribere, easque Macedonie illis finitime subijcere. P. Candidi de civilibus Romanorum bellis ab Appiano Alexandrino traductus in Latinum, Liber quintus finit. Laus deo semper.’, ff.1–103; ‘Illiricorum descriptio. Illirios Greci eos existimant qui supra Macedoniam [...]’; ff.103–106v, ending slightly imperfect.

Appian of Alexandria (fl. c. AD 160), a lawyer in Rome, compiled narratives in Greek of Roman conquests from the earliest time to Vespasian. Of the twenty-four books only nine survive complete, including Books 13–17 which concern the civil wars from 146 to 70 BC, represented here. The short piece about the Illyrians (who lived in the area that is today Croatia) comes from Book 9.




Literature

Thomas Phillipps, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum in Bibliotheca D. Thomæ Phillipps, Bart., A.D. 1837 [Reprinted with an Introduction by A.N.L. Munby], repr. [London] Orskey-Johnson, 2001 (Privately printed, 1837), no 8080.

Faye & Bond Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 1962, p.401, no 78.

Anna Koranyi, ‘The Manuscripts of Pier Candido Decembrio’s Latin Translation of Appian’s Historia Romana’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Columbia University, 1975), pp. ii, iv.

P. O. Kristeller, Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts, V, 1990, p. 351 (‘perhaps autograph’).
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