Antique book including Virgil's works (Bucolics, Georgics, Aeneid: Chapters I-XII, &c).

Published by Elzevir in Amsterdam during the year MDCXC (1690).

Illustrated title page + fold-out map.

No binding. Text in latin.

340 pages, 12.5 x 7 x 2 cm.

Acceptable condition in general (no binding, both boards missing, damaged spine where scratches, rubbed/discolored/splotchy parts, holes, tears/creases, fragile parts, leather parts unmounted from its surface and pieces missing, foxing, yellow/brown stains, tiny tears/creases, fragile parts, minor piece of paper missing from few leaves' corners/margin not affecting text, tear & preserved part on map's upper left part).

Shipping costs via registered mail (tracking number provided): $16.


Publius Vergilius Maro (Classical Latin: [ˈpuːbliʊs wɛrˈɡɪliʊs ˈmaroː]; traditional dates 15 October 70 – 21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil (/ˈvɜːrdʒɪl/ VUR-jil) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems to be dubious. Virgil's work has had great influence on Western literature, most notably Dante's Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as the author's guide through Hell and Purgatory. Virgil has been traditionally ranked as one of Rome's greatest poets. His Aeneid is also considered a national epic of ancient Rome, a title held since composition.

Note: The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The hero Aeneas was already known to Greco-Roman legend and myth, having been a character in the Iliad; Virgil took the disconnected tales of Aeneas' wanderings, his vague association with the foundation of Rome and a personage of no fixed characteristics other than a scrupulous piety, and fashioned this into a compelling founding myth or nationalist epic that at once tied Rome to the legends of Troy, glorified traditional Roman virtues and legitimized the Julio-Claudian dynasty as descendants of the founders, heroes and gods of Rome and Troy.

Elzevir is the name of a family of Dutch booksellers, publishers, and printers of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The duodecimo series of "Elzevirs" became very famous and very desirable among bibliophiles, who sought to obtain the tallest and freshest copies of these tiny books. Although it appears the family was involved with the book trade as early as the 16th century, it is only known for its work in some detail beginning with Lodewijk Elzevir (also called Louis). The family ceased printing in 1712, but a contemporary publisher, Elsevier (founded in 1880), took over, for marketing purposes, the name and logo of this early modern business, but without having any real historical connections to it.