Book Description

The Junius Spencer Morgan collection at Princeton University consists of over 700 titles (totaling around 900 volumes) of editions of the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC), in Latin and in various vernacular languages. Technically the collection includes items ranging from the first printed edition (Rome, 1469) to the present, but the focus is strongly on material published in the early modern period. This collection was formed by Junius Spencer Morgan, the nephew of the financier J. P. Morgan. Morgan's interest in Virgil was undoubtedly encouraged during his student days at Princeton and reflects his efforts to obtain the best copies he could find of items noteworthy for their scholarship, their illustrations, or their place in publishing history. The result is one of the largest collections of early printed editions of Virgil in the world, a collection whose balance and integrity make it the proper beginning place for research in this field. Given Virgil's central place in western education during the early centuries of printing, the catalogue of the Morgan collection should be of interest to art historians, cultural historians, and historians of education as well as classicists and specialists in printing history and the history of the book. This handsomely-produced volume includes close to fifty full-page color illustrations from the collection.