P. Ouidii Nasonis Metamorphoseon libri XV. Raphaelis Regii Volaterrani luculentissima explanatio, cum nouis alterius viri eruditissimi additionibus. Lactantii Placiti in singulas fabulas arguments, eruditissimorum virorum Coelii Rhodigini, Ioan. Baptistae Egnatii, Henrici Glareani, Giberti Longolii, & Iacobi Fanensis in pleraque omnia loca difficiliora annotations. Omnia nunc postremo à multis erroribus & mendis purgata, summaq[ue] cura excusa. Cum indice rerum memorabilium ac fabularum omnium, quae libris singulis continentur

Venice: Apud Nicolaum Moretum, 1586. WITH MORE THAN 60 WOODCUT ILLUSTRATIONS. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in early stiff parchment (soiled, some minor worming, hinges starting, upper board bowed. A very good copy, title lightly soiled, scattered light damp-staining, minor soiling, and marginal foxing in the first 7 gatherings (the first 4 books), two leaves in gathering A lightly browned, small abrasion to image on leaf E7, short worm-trail on the last two index leaves affecting a few words, another damp-stain to the final gathering, a few stray blemishes. Aside from those points, the text is crisp and bright. Illustrated with more than 60 woodcut illustrations. A late 16th c. illustrated edition, using earlier woodcuts, of Ovid's "Metamorphoses". The book opens with a letter (dated 1513) by the editor Raffaele Regio (1450-1520) and features commentaries by 15th and early 16th c. humanist writers. The title page announces that Regio's edition has been corrected for this printing.

"The fundamental characteristic of the world described by the 'Metamorphoses' is its ambiguous and deceptive nature, the uncertainty of the boundaries between reality and appearance, between the concreteness of things and the inconstancy of their appearances. The characters of the poem behave as if lost in this insidious universe, which is governed by change and error; disguises, shadows, reflections, echoes, and fugitive semblances are the snares in the midst of which the humans move about, victims of the play of fate or the whim of the gods. Their uncertain action and the natural human disposition to err are the object of the poet's regard, now touched, now amused; they are the spectacle that the poem represents."(Conte).