Propertius was a Roman elegiac poet from the second half of the 1st century BCE, and a contemporary of Tibullus, with whose work he is frequently anthologised, along with their immediate predecessor Catullus (84-54 BCE). All three poets wrote in elegiac couplets, a metrical form used widely in Greek and Roman love poetry. They were inspired to write by their (apparent) love for a woman, often unobtainable, frequently unsuitable; in Propertius’s case she is named Cynthia. Tibullus wrote his first book of verse in pursuit of a lady named Delia; Catullus most famously for Lesbia (whose real identity was probably Clodia Metelli of the patrician Claudii).

This edition contains Andreas de Paltasichis’ editions of Propertius printed February 1488, along with his printing of Catullus and Tibullus, from December 1487. Paltasichis (or Paltašić) was born in Kotor, in the Venetian territory of Albania Veneta (modern Montenegro) to a noble family, and came to Venice in the 1470s becoming one of the earliest printers there. He printed works by the most famous classical authors, as well as those of more contemporary humanist scholars.