Aulus Gellius (125-180 AD) - photo 1
Aulus Gellius (125-180 AD) - photo 2
Aulus Gellius (125-180 AD) - photo 3

Aulus Gellius (125-180 AD)

Lot 27
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 1514471
Lot 27 | Aulus Gellius (125-180 AD)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Aulus Gellius (125-180 AD)
Noctes atticae (excerpta), in Latin, decorated manuscript on paper [Italy, second half 15th century]
Excerpts from Aulus Gellius' compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, antiquarianism and other subjects.

c. 230 x 160mm, i + 94 + xiii leaves, collation: 1–38, 47 (of 8, lacking vi), 57 (of 8, lacking viii), 6–128, foliation in pencil 1-94, catchwords survive, leaf signatures survive sporadically, 26 lines written in fere-Humanistica script, ruled space: c. 135 x 90 mm, spaces left blank for Greek text and initials, one red and one blue initial on the first page (lacking single leaves after ff.29 and 38, parts of the blank margins of the first and last leaves missing and repaired, ff.69v–70 much dirtier than the others). Sewn on five bands and bound in 19th-century leather and paper over pasteboards, the spine lettered in gilt capitals ‘Aulus Gellius Noctes Atticae’ and ‘MS. Italy c.1450’, the edges of the leaves sprinkled red (edges and corners scuffed).

Provenance:
(1) A heraldic shield has been drawn in the margin of f.36. The watermark is hard to discern but said to be similar to Briquet no 6600 (Milan 1480) but with a line through the center of the flower.

(2) ‘The property of a lady’, sold at Sotheby’s, 23–24 January 1950, lot 449; bought for £7 by:

(3) Maggs Bros Ltd, London: with their pencil acquisition notes (back pastedown); obtained in 1950 by:

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

(5) Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (1913-1994): her leather book label inside upper cover, MS 107. On deposit at Bryn Mawr, BMC 57. Published in Faye & Bond, Supplement, p.403, no 107.

Content:
[Heading:] ‘Auli gelii noctium atticarum primi comentarii extracta quodam sequuntur. Cuius initium est. Primo de Ingenio – pithagore sollertia exempla ponit’, [text:] ‘Plutarchus in libro quem scripsit: Quantii inter homines fuit animi corporisque ingenio atque virtutibus [...] etiam oratio que videtur habita illo die a Scipione’, ff.1–93v; blank, f.94r–v.
Parts of 5.4–6 and 6.11–14 are lacking due to the loss of two leaves.

Aulus Gellius (125-180 AD) studied literature in Rome before going to Athens. The Attic Nights, in 20 books, is a somewhat random collection of notes based on his reading, lectures he had heard, and conversations he had had, and covers a wide range of subjects including law, history, philosophy, grammar, among many others. Among the thousands of quotations from other works are many that would otherwise not have been preserved. The title comes from the fact that he wrote it in spare evening hours in Attica. Just as Gellius selected snippets of longer works of interest to him, the compiler of the present short volume copied only snippets of Gellius’s work.




Literature

Faye & Bond Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 1962, p.403, no 107.
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