BOULENGER, Jules César. Liber, de venatione circi & amphitheatri. Editio prima, Paris, apud Robertum Nivelle, 1598
8vo. 92ff. Woodcut device on title-page, a few woodcut headpieces and initials, woodcut cul-de-lampe, a few very light spots and stains, in contemporary vellum.
FIRST EDITION, issue with Nivelle as printer. The first few chapters of Boulenger's entertaining work treat generally of hunting and hawking before concentrating on the Roman games involving animals in the circuses and amphitheatres. He never loses sight, however, of his original thesis and throughout compares the two methods of 'hunting', taking numerous examples from Latin and Greek authors. The work is sometimes found with his De circo Romano, ludisque circensibus. The author, a Jesuit, was born in Loudun in 1558 and died at Cahors in 1628. Most of his books deal with Roman times; but he also wrote a history of his own age, Historiarum sui temporis libri XIII, ab an.1560 ad ann.1610, Lyon, 1619.
Adams B2586; Schwerdt I, p.79; Thiébaud 123; NUC locates only the copy at Duke University; RLIN adds Harvard and Stanford; OCLC adds Fordham and the University of California
£750
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