This is the first printed edition of a church history compiled by Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus in the mid-sixth century, after a career as a statesman for the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy. The compilation is based on the work of the fifth-century Greek historians Socrates Scholasticus (c. 380-c. 440), Sozomenos (c. 400-c. 450), and Theodoret (393-458), which had been translated into Latin by Epiphanius, a member of the monastic community of Vivarium, where Cassiodorus had moved to.

Binding description

Full crimson goat skin with six raised bands laced on boards; flexible sewing, tight back, double sewn headbands. Covers decorated with gilt crest of King George III as centrepiece; gilt rolls and fillets form a border; gilt roll also on board edges and turn-ins; corners bashed. Spine decorated with gilt tooling and titling. Marbled endpapers.