Axe by Simmias of Rhodes, around 325 BC. Printed in 1579. It commemorates heroes of war and is..
meant to be read in “chiastic” fashion: the first line, then the last line, then the second line, then the second-to-last line, and so on until concluding in the center.
Via.
Poem VIII, a carmina figurata originally by Publilius Optatianus Porphyrius in the 300s. This version was made in the 1590’s, with red ink to emphasize the word. In the description of a similar piece, Swann Auction Gallery writes:
This was an early production of the press with the imprint “ad insigne pinus” founded in 1594 by the Augsburg humanist Markus Welser and the scholar David Hoeschel. The poems first appeared in a 1590 collection of Latin epigrams and verse edited by Pierre Pithou, but the text in this edition was set from a manuscript in the collection of Welser’s brother. Schweiger II, 620; Zapf, Augsburgs Buchdruckergeschichte I, 186.
Post updated in 2024.
