Livy (Titus Livius) (Patavium, Venetia, 59/64 BC - Patavium, 17 AD). Todas las Decadas de Tito Livio. Anuers: Arnaldo Byrcman, 1553.
Along with Sallust and Tacitus, Livy was one of the great Roman historians. He saw history in terms of human characters and sought to understand the course of history from that perspective. This was Livy's major achievement, and it became an important influence on classical historians --such as Tacitus--, and on Christian, Renaissance and Western historiography right up to the 19th century.
Livy made no claims to original research or method, only of his literary qualities. His purpose was moralizing, and thus he showed his readers examples from the remote Roman past, when society was supposedly uncorrupted and simple. Livy emphasizes that history is humanistic, although humans like to think of their origin as divine.
At least two Spanish translations were published before the 1553 edition of Arnaldo Byrcman held by the Durand Collection: Las decadas de Tito Livio, in Salamanca (1497), with a translation attributed to Pedro López de Ayala; and Las quatorze decadas de Tito Livio, historiador de los romanos, in Zaragoza (1520), printed by Jorge Coci.
Arnaldo Byrcman paid for the 1552 edition of Livy's work that was published in 1552 and printed by Augustin Frisio in Strasburg (Argentina). The translation was done by Pedro de la Vega, first published by Pedro Villaqurán in Toledo in 1516, then corrected and expanded in two chapters (book X, Decade IV) by Francisco de Enzinas. Being a booktrader in Antwerp, Byrcman changed the title and last pages in 1553, printed his name as publisher, and sold this "new" edition in his house, "under the mark of the fat chicken."
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