# Andreas Gesner at Zurich prints Xylander’s Greek-Latin editio princeps of the Meditations

Date: 1559

## The fact

In 1558/59 Wilhelm Xylander’s Greek-Latin Meditations was printed at Zurich by Andreas Gesner, the editio princeps of the work later titled Ta eis heauton. The dated public instrument is that book.

## Context

Marcus wrote notes, not a treatise for the Senate. Print converted a private exercise into a public philosophy school text. Wars, plague, and succession are other rows.

[Marcus Aurelius](/people/marcus-aurelius) is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek digitises the Gesner-Xylander volume. SEP independently treats 1558/59 as the print starting-point.

Official or archival record: Xylander 1559 Meditations — Bayerische Staatsbibliothek digitisation (https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10169588; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek / MDZ).

## Significance

Knowledge-access path. High confidence on the printing.

A printed notebook is not a statute. Do not back-date Zurich to the Danube.

## What is established and what is not

Established: a Greek-Latin Meditations was printed at Zurich in 1558/59. Not established: that Marcus authorised print, or a literacy series for 1559.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is edu-[digital-learning-access](/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access). The welfare reading used in this dossier is improving. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Marcus Aurelius: https://factrail.ai/people/marcus-aurelius

## Drivers

- Digital Learning Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/edu-digital-learning-access

## Sources

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marcus-aurelius/
- https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10169588

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ma-xylander-meditations-1559