FUN FACT: The title page of oldest book at Powell's, 'The Works of Decimus Magnus Ausonius,' carries not only the year of the printing, but the exact date of the printing. 🎉Which is how we know it turns 528 today!🎉 Please join us in wishing this very old book a very happy birthday. 📍Want to become an expert? Here are the facts: 'The Works of Decimus Magnus Ausonius' (c. 310–c. 395) on display in our Rare Book Room was printed on August 11, 1494, just 50 odd years after Gutenberg started messing around with movable type in Europe. Ausonius was a poet & teacher of rhetoric. Sad to say, Ausonius doesn't have the most exciting binding — not much to look at. For the sake of display we've photographed the page with the print date, and the printer's device. The SECOND oldest book, which sits next to Ausonius in the display case, is three works of Baptista Mantuanus (1447–1516) bound together: 'Opus Calamitatum [with] Duarum Parthenice [with] Exceptiones Legum Romanorum.' The print dates are 1500, 1501, and 1502. This binding is pigskin, with brass bosses and a clasp at the fore edge. Overheard in the Rare Book Room: "It looks like a book you could use to summon the devil!" #powellsbooks #rarebooks #bookstore #portland #pdx