Lodoïs de Martin du Tyrac, comte de MARCELLUS (1795-1865). A - Lot 113

Lodoïs de Martin du Tyrac, comte de MARCELLUS (1795-1865). Autograph manuscript signed, L'Évangile selon St Jean..., [1859]; approx. 260pages small in-4 (mostly 18 x 22 cm), leaves. Complete working manuscript of this translation from Greek. A diplomat, Marcellus made a name for himself by bringing the Venus de Milo back to France; in 1830, he retired from public life to devote himself to letters. After translating and publishing in 1855 the Dionysiacs of Nonnos of Panopolis (a 4th-5th century Greek poet), he translated, for the first time, his Paraphrase de l'Évangile selon Jean, composed in dactylic hexameters, published by Firmin Didot in 1861. The manuscript contains numerous important erasures and corrections. It includes the Preface, the 21 chapters of the translation, the Notes and corrections to the Greek text (preceded by an Avis); plus a "Supplément aux Notes", previously unpublished, comprising a "Essai succinct d'un Commentaire sur le texte grec de la Paraphrase de Nonnos", and an essay on Nonnos, also previously unpublished. Attached is a copy of the translation with autograph corrections, used for printing (167p.); some twenty autograph pages of minutes of letters and notes; the file of corrected proofs of the book, comprising the Greek text and the translation with numerous autograph corrections.