{"title":"Humanism","description":"\u003cp\u003eRenaissance humanism, classical learning, philosophy, ethics, and human-centred intellectual traditions.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"bessarion-cardinal-johannes","title":"BESSARION, Cardinal Johannes","description":"\u003cp\u003ePart I comprises the second much expanded Aldine edition of Bessarion s great defense of Plato and Platonism, written in response to the translation of the  Laws  by George of Trebizond who had taken advantage of its publication to print a sharp criticism of Plato and exalt Aristotle. Bessarion, one of the great humanists and Hellenists of the mid C15 had studied philosophy under Gemistus Pletho and imbibed from him a love of Plato, happily shorn of Gemistius  hatred of Aristotle. Bessarion rather advocated a synthesis of the two systems of learning, perceiving and appreciating their many points of contact and in the present work (ch. 5) demolishes Trebizond s attack by the simple device of enumerating verbatim all the errors of his translation and faults in his commentaries. The second part of the present work, here printed for the first time, comprises Bessarion s own translation of Aristotle's metaphysics and book one of those of Themistius. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n It is said that Bessarion, the greatest scholar - statesman - diplomat - ecclesiastic of his age, had three aims in life: the reunion of the Latin and Eastern Church, the rescue of Greece from Moslem occupation and the triumph of classical literature and poetry, especially the Greek. He succeeded temporarily in the first, partially in the second , and beyond all expectation in the third - paving the way for the great revival that was to follow. In between his many extraordinary labours in the public field, organizing crusades, restoring the City and University of Bologna, dominating great international councils, he became patron of the very first Renaissance Accademia (actually founded in his house) and amassed an extraordinary library of more than eight hundred codices of ancient Greek ms. - which he gave to form the basis of the Marciana in Venice.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BESSARION, Cardinal Johannes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816066097487,"sku":"L1198","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Bessarion-L1198-1.jpg?v=1781795331"},{"product_id":"reisch-gregorius","title":"REISCH, Gregorius","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Gallucci s translation of Gregorius Reich s celebrated and beautifully illustrated encyclopedia with additional material in this edition by Gallucci and including the revisions by the mathematician Oronce Fine from 1535, and some of the additions of the 1512 Strasbourg edition, such as Martin Waldseemüller's treatises on architecture and perspective, and Masha'allah's composition of the astrolabe. The Margarita philosophica (the Philosophic pearl) is a beautifully illustrated encyclopedia which was widely used as a university textbook in the early sixteenth century, particularly in Germany; it takes the form of a dialogue between master and pupil - the pupil asks elementary questions and the master answers them in depth. It gives us an intriguing insight into the university curriculum and state of learning and scientific knowledge at the start of the C16th and here in a much revised form in the late C16th. Its author, Gregor Reisch (c.1467-1525), a Carthusian monk and a friend of many of the most celebrated Humanists of his era including, Erasmus, Beatus and Rheananus, was prior of the Charterhouse of St John the Baptist near Freiburg-im-Breisgau from 1503 to 1525 and was confessor and counsellor to the Emperor Maximilian I. He was educated at the University of Freiburg where he received the degree of magister in 1489 and also taught there. The Margarita was conceived as a textbook for his students at Freiburg, among whom were many influential figures of the German Renaissance, notably the theologian Johann Eck. Reisch's text is divided into twelve chapters. The traditional subjects of the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy) each have a chapter devoted to them. Four of the five remaining chapters are concerned with natural philosophy and cover such things as the elements, meteorology, alchemy, the plant and animal kingdoms, optics and memory as well as heaven, hell and purgatory. The final chapter concerns moral philosophy. The additions in this edition are added at the end, a further 300 odd pages, each supplementing a chapter of the main work. The usefulness of the book as an educational tool is much enhanced by a detailed index and the liberal use of marvelous woodcut illustrations. There are two issues of this edition, with apparently no priority, one with Barezzi's imprint, and another with Somascho's which is more common institutionally. A very good copy of this wonderful and beautifully illustrated educational encyclopedia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"REISCH, Gregorius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816068096335,"sku":"L1138","price":7250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1138-1.jpg?v=1781795327"},{"product_id":"vergilius-maro-publius","title":"VERGILIUS MARO, Publius","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first collected edition of the works of Vergil in French, in the verse translation of Guillaume Michel de Tours for the Eclogues and Georgics and Octovien de Saint-Gelais for the Aeneid. The individual titles had been published in separate editions, all three of which are exceptionally rare; 'Les Eneydes' by Octovien de Saint-Gelais in 1509, 'Les Bucoliques' in 1516 and 'Les Georgicques' 1519 both by Guillaume Michel. This collection of the works was republished in 1532 and 1540. Both the translators were poets of some note, both Rhetoriqueurs, the name generally given to the group of poets active from approximately 1450 to 1530, between Villon and Clement Marot (including Chastellain, Meschonot, Molinet, Gringore, Cr étin, Jean Lemaire de Belges, Jean Marot, and Jean Bouchet, who was still writing in 1550). St.-Gelais and Michel shared an intense preoccupation with rhetoric; it was as 'l'art de seconde rh étorique' that they classified poetry. Both were prolific and extremely influential translators of classical texts. Octovien de Saint-Gelais had considerable, knowledge of the literature of antiquity, and an eagerness to display it, sometimes leading to an excessive use of Latinisms in pursuit of a high style. His work in general concentrates on purely formal devices, such as elaborate rhyme schemes (rimes l éonines, couronn ées, encha√Æn ées,  équivoqu ées), alliteration, puns, rebus, and other types of puzzles. All this is sometimes (inevitably) at the expense of clarity. The Rhetoriqueurs influence on Renaissance poetry, with all its formal experimentation, was considerable. Rabelais too, with his love of puns and lists, can be seen as a direct heir. There had been an earlier anonymous translation of The Aeneid published before Saint Gelais' but it was really a reworking of the text rather than a translation. \"Influenced by the philological impulse of the earlier Humanists, sixteenth-century translators are almost universally concerned to demonstrate the fidelity and accuracy of their versions. The prose 'remaniement' of Vergil, close to a romance, which appeared anonymously in 1483 was challenged in 1509 by the posthumous publication of Octavien de Saint-Gelais' verse translation composed with the intention 'to translate this book from its lofty distinguished Latin word-for-word and as closely as possible'.\" The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. The works of Vergil had been published numerous times in France but no edition was more influential on French Renaissance literature than this poetical translation that brought Vergil's work to a much wider audience. It was unequalled until Clement Marot's version was published in 1577.  Most, if not all, of the woodcuts used in this volume are incunable blocks from V érard's general stock, giving the work immense visual charm. The large and fine woodcut depicting an author at his desk that accompanies the prologue to the Aeneid had also been used by Couteau in 'La l égende des Flamens' in 1522. The present work is very rare, Renouard cites thirteen copies in public libraries worldwide (mostly in provincial France) but we have been able to locate far fewer and no copies at auction in the last thirty years. An important, rare and extremely influential work from the exceptional library of the Earls of Macclesfield.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VERGILIUS MARO, Publius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816068325711,"sku":"L871","price":14500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_00112.jpg?v=1781795325"},{"product_id":"caviceo-jacomo","title":"CAVICEO, Jacomo","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare, beautifully printed and illustrated popular edition of Francois Dassi s French translation of Caviceo s  Libro del Peregrino , first published in the author s native Parma in 1508, and remarkably popular, both in Italy and France, where it went through more than twenty editions during the following fifty years, though it has not been reprinted in its entirety since 1559, perhaps due to its robust attitude to physical love. Caviceo introduces his romance with the appearance of Boccaccio s shade who praises the book s dedicatee, Lucrezia Borgia; unsurprisingly the Peregino is full of echoes of Boccaccio s writings, and is also imbued with the atmosphere of the Ferrarese court of Ercole I d Este which Caviceo knew well. He appears also to have used Colonna s Hyperotomachia as a model, as the Peregrino similarly contains a multiplicity of digressions on a diverse range of subjects in a Latinate prose full of classical allusions. As the title suggests much of the romance is concerned with travel, based on the author s own experiences, including voyages to the middle east, Mount Sinai and Cyprus. These adventures often serve as a pretext for a display of humanist erudition, courtly speeches, with disquisitions on natural philosophy and neo-platonic theories of love. A good deal of the work is comic, sometimes unsubtle, as in the episode when Peregrino steals, via a sewer, into what he believes is his ladies chamber only to discover, at a critical moment, that he entered a neighboring house and is in the wrong bed. All these disparate elements are woven into the story of Peregrino, an ardent lover, who after many trials on behalf of his love Ginevra, eventually wins her hand, only to witness her death shortly after the birth of her first child. The story is innovative firstly in its narrative technique, the entire story is told by the hero s shade and is in the first person, (much of the book is composed of dialogue) and secondly in its inclusion of a host of famous contemporaries in his fictional narrative, some recently dead, but most still living at publication. It is therefore quite surprising that the work was so popular in France where few of this gallery of local figures would have been known to its readers. The book was translated into French by Francois Dassi, a lawyer and secretary to Henri d Albert king of Navarre. The first French edition appeared in 1527, at a time when there was considerable interest in France for all things Italian. Dassi made no attempt to modify the passages of the original which deal with specifically Italian figures, and his translation is complete and faithful. Like the Fairfax Murray copy, this copy lacks the final leaf, 'probably blank'. This Paris edition appears to have been shared by many printers, P. Sargent (BL copy), F. Gilbert (Fairfax Murray copy), A. Lotrian (BNF copy) as well as Jean Petit, all of which are extremely rare; we have not found a copy of the Petit imprint recorded online.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAVICEO, Jacomo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816070390095,"sku":"L1289","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1289-2.jpg?v=1781795324"},{"product_id":"manutius-paulus","title":"MANUTIUS, Paulus","description":"\u003cp\u003eExpanded edition, revised and corrected of Manutius' celebrated commentary on the 16 books of Cicero's letters to his closest friend T. Pomponius Atticus and the starting point of all modern editions of the text. Written over the course of many years from 65BC onwards and compiled by Cicero's personal secretary Marcus Tullius Tiro, the letters are frequently written in a subtle code to mask their political content. In his impressively detailed commentary Manutius is clearly aware of this, discussing the implications of certain names and places thoroughly, explaining their relationships to each other and explaining historical and social significance as appropriate. A valuable edition in a fine copy. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n \"Perhaps the most valuable of Cicero's surviving works are the letters, such a vivid commentary on the last years of the Roman Republic as we have of no other period of ancient times. Here alone, devoid of formality, the character of Cicero can be seen.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANUTIUS, Paulus","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816107417935,"sku":"L802","price":1500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/2013-11-27-23.11.42.jpg?v=1781795310"},{"product_id":"venusti-antonio-maria","title":"VENUSTI, Antonio Maria","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of Venusti's work about generation, birth and brevity of life. There are two lists of contents: the first lists the headings of the 139 chapters into which the text is divided, the second lists the most interesting topics. Included are abortion, why the good die young and teeth can't be destroyed by fire; the definition of the hermaphrodite, famous dwarfs of that time in Milan, Turkish men having more wives and why lust is especially characteristic of the hairy and the lame. The author starts from the viewpoint of the dignity of marriage, describing the relationship of husband and wife and the treatment of moral, social and sexual behaviour. He moves on to pregnancy - medical prescriptions and superstitions -, birth and children - how to cure, care and educate them-, often referring to the opinions of Avicenna, Aristotle, Averroes, Cicero, Plato, Homer and to the Bible. The result is a mixture of medicine and philosophy. The last section is about natural and unnatural ways of dying and time, its division into years, days and hours, the origins of this division and some philosophical speculations on it.  Oratius Luccesinus was a member of a family prominent in Lucca in the first half of eighteenth century belonging to the noblesse de la robe of the city. The decoration of the binding is unusual combining the Renaissance and the beginnings of Neoclassicism.  Antonio Maria Venusti (1529 - 1585) was a doctor from Grosio, a village near the city of Sondrio. He descended from a poor branch of the Venosta family, the Earls of Tirolo, which in the CXIV ruled that region. He lived in Milan at the court of Dadda family who undertook his education since his father had died during his boyhood and Venusti dedicated this work to the ten sons of Erasmo Dadda. Their motto, NEC VI NEC SPONTO, on p. b2v, is represented in the centre of a chain made up of ten diamond rings, compared in verse by Giovanni Battista Porro to the valour and strength of the Dadda family.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VENUSTI, Antonio Maria","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816115642703,"sku":"L659","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L659.jpg?v=1781795308"},{"product_id":"pontano-giovanni-gioviano","title":"PONTANO, Giovanni Gioviano","description":"First Aldine edition of the astrological writings of Johannes Jovianus Pontanus (Giovanni Gioviano Pontano, 1429-1503), humanist, diplomat, scholar and poet who became the driving force behind the Neapolitan Academy and its official leader after 1471, as well as Naples' Secretary of State. His was considered by contemporaries as good as, or superior to, his Classical models. Pontanus' career provides an excellent illustration of the power and prestige which might be attained by men of letters in fifteenth-century Italy.\r \r The present volume consists of Pontanos' scientific (or proto-scientific and astrological) works: a translation and commentary on the Centum Ptolemaei sententiae, and other, briefer treatises, including De luna and De rebus coelestibus.\r \r The pseudo-Ptolemaic Centum Sententiae, or Centiloquy, is a collection of astrological aphorisms, once thought to have been the work of Claudius Ptolemaeus - from whose work it differs in many key respects. Seventeenth-century English scholars such as Joseph Moxon and William Lilly noted that some ascribed it to the mythical Hermes Trismegistus. More recent speculation has centred around the figure of Abu Ja'far Ahmad ibn Yusuf Ibn Daya (d. c.941), who wrote extensive glosses to the work, and translated it into Hebrew and Latin. While some of the sententiae demonstrate typical astrological vagueness (III: a person skilled in a particular field will have been born under the relevant star; VI, XI: the day and time for a particular activity should be chosen carefully, with reference to one's horoscope), others are extremely specific (XX: 'Do not pierce not with iron that part of the body which may be governed by the sign occupied by the Moon'; XXII: 'Do not either put on or lay aside any garment for the first time, when the Moon is located in Leo'). Pontanus' commentary is notable for its concern with proving the superiority of astrology over much contemporary 'science', and for the socio-psychological rather than theological nature of its speculations. It was immensely influential in contemporary and later astrological and prophetic writing: Nostradamus quotes with approval his first proposition 'Soli numine divino afflati praesagiunt \u0026amp; spiritu prophetico particularia' ('Only those inspired by the divine godhead can prophesy, and only those inspired by the spirit of prophecy can prophesy detailed events').","brand":"PONTANO, Giovanni Gioviano","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816117707087,"sku":"L593","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/frontcover_6d949577-4acb-4edf-a998-12eee4563161.png?v=1781795303"},{"product_id":"tabourot-etienne","title":"TABOUROT, Étienne","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn early edition of this compilation of the complete works of the 'Rabelais of Bourgogne', which \"eut un grand success, qu'il dut surtout √† l'originalit é de son auteur, incarnation vigeureuse de la gaiet é franche et de la na√Øvet é maliciuese du vieil esprit gaulois\". Tabourot (known as Le Seigneur des Accords), a talented lawyer, friend of Montaigne and Pasquier, and 'juge ch√¢telain de la baronnie de Verdun en Bourgogne', spent ten years before his appointment broadening his mind at the University in Paris and in traveling. He published a number of works, among them a revised edition of his uncle Jehan Le Fèvre's works. He started work early on the present collection of works, a playful smorgasbord of popular folk-tales and fables, satirical pieces, rhymes, basic numerology and codemaking, sorcerers and impostors, the invetion of many anagrams and above all amusing nothings, which at the same time are frequently instructive, but also include \"des obscenit és grossières et immondes\". However, unlike most surviving works of the period, it provides us with a rare view of the literature of the people and the tastes of ordinary readers, especially of Dijon and Burgogne. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The first edition of this collection of Tabourot's works was J. Richer's in Paris in 1603 (on which the present edition is based). However, some of the works had been published separately in the 16th century, most notably the Touches (first published 1585-88 - \"les exemplaires complets des editions originales de cet ouvrage sont si rare qu'on chercherait vainement\"), which suffered at the hands of 16th-century editors, and are conventionally much reduced in collected editions. Nevertheless, what remains is an amusing and unusual testimony to the playful side of the post-Renaissance, afforded a signal charm by the na√Øf woodcuts illustrating the text.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TABOUROT, Étienne","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816118722895,"sku":"L468","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0016.jpg?v=1781795301"},{"product_id":"campanus-johannes-antonius","title":"CAMPANUS, Johannes Antonius","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of the collected works of Johannes Antonius Campanus (Giovanni Antonio Campano; c. 1429-1477). Campanus, churchman, humanist and orator, led a varied career which took him to appointments in Naples and Perugia (as a teacher of rhetoric), before his election as Bishop of Crotone in 1463. From 1472-74 he was Papal Governor of Todi. A prominent figure of the day, Campanus was the subject of a Latin epitaph by Poliziano. The present edition reproduces the introduction by Michael Fernus from the first, Roman edition of 1495.  The essays in the present volume demonstrate Campanus' rhetorical and theological expertise to the full, and are comprehensively indexed. They include orations on the Holy Spirit and St. Stephan; we are not told the occasions on which these were delivered - if, indeed, they were anything more than exercises in composition. Other instructive essays include 'De dignitate martrimonii' and 'Contra Turchos ad principes germanos'; biographies of Thomas Aquinas, Pope Pius and Archbishop John of Benevento also appear. The present volume is, however, dominated by a lengthier biographic work, Campanus' six book life of the famous condottiere Andrea Braccio Fortebracci, conte di Montone (1368-1424), who was fatally wounded by his fellow soldier of fortune Francesco Sforza near L'Aquila, northeast of Rome. The work concludes with eight book of Latin epigrams, on religious and secular subjects.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAMPANUS, Johannes Antonius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816119017807,"sku":"L649","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_00161.jpg?v=1781795300"},{"product_id":"de-billon-francois","title":"DE BILLON, François","description":"\u003cp\u003eFIRST EDITION of the “most enthusiastic and passionate panegyric [on the rights and merits of women] to have been written between 1450 and 1550” (Albistur \u0026amp; Armogathe, Histoire du feminisme du Moyen-Age à nos jours), Billon’s strenuous early defence of the equality of the ‘second sex’. Another edition was apparently published with the same date and different title but without giving the printer’s name – either a shared or pirated issue. Little is known about his life, but Billon was born in Paris, the nephew of Artus Billon, Bishop of Senlis. He was an author ‘in the Italian style’, and accompanied Cardinal Bellay to Rome as his secretary in the mid-1550s, where he wrote the present treatise, dedicated to Catherine de Medici. Billon died around 1566, and was one of the principal theorists of feminism in the 16thC, and the work forms part of the literary canon of the ‘Women’s Quarrel’ (‘La Querelle des Femmes’), which was a Europe-wide literary battle that raged for over 300 years between various authors attacking, and defending women (hence the martial imagery), reflecting the sometimes serious and sometimes jocular nature of scholarly argument from 1500-1800; these texts were often reliant on theological sources. The work appeared again in 1564, with a slightly different title.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBuilt up as an ‘impregnable fort’ of separate ‘bastions’ (chapters), the work is a robust defence of the role of women, peppered with allegorical references, but arguing strenuously for improvements in female education, encouraging women to abandon home and convent for traditionally male-dominated professions, including politics and the military. Billon also advocates the dissolution of arranged marriages and the ending of a woman’s legal subjugation to her husband. He notes that in Europe, where he says women are held in the greatest subjugation, men are also more subjugated; and argues for the qualities (such as honesty, magnanimity, piety and devotion) and achievements (arguing, i.a., that women make better singers -the ‘angelic sweetness’ of the female voice) of women throughout the ages, even disputing with the Bible. The book also includes the first appearance of the word ‘atheism’ (in the context of a people’s lack of belief) and contains probably the first bio-bibliography of female writers and inventors.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DE BILLON, François","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816119279951,"sku":"L646","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_00492.jpg?v=1781795298"},{"product_id":"rhodiginus-caelius","title":"RHODIGINUS, Caelius","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of these massive and learned commentaries of the Italian Renaissance in sixteen books. Caelius Rhodiginus is the humanist nickname of Ludovico Ricchieri (1469-1525), a respected professor of Latin and Greek in Rovigo. In 1511, Rhodiginus moved to Milan to take over the lectureship of Demetrios Chalcondyles, under the auspices of the city treasurer and renowned book collector Jean Grolier. The Antiquae lectiones are dedicated to Grolier, with a remembrance of Aldus Manutius, recently dead. The work gathers together a considerable number of short essays and notes on Latin and Greek antiquity, ranging from literature, philology and science to philosophy, history, anthropology and morality. Remarkable considerations on ancient music are to be found in book five, chapters XX-XXIX. The somewhat confusing encyclopaedic structure was modelled after Gellio s Noctes Atticae and Erasmus s Adagia. The book was very well received and was frequently reprinted up to 1666. Despite some initials charges of plagiarism, even Erasmus ended up to value Ricchieri s work. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In his Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries (London 1869, I, p. 272), Henry Hallam defines it as  by far the best and most extensive collection hitherto made from the stores of antiquity. It is now hardly remembered; but obtained almost universal praise, even from severe critics, for the deep erudition of its author, who, in a somewhat rude style, pours forth explanations of obscure and emendations of corrupted passages, with profuse display of knowledge in the customs and even philosophy of the ancients, but more especially in medicine and botany.  This copy was annotated by a contemporary reader mainly interested in the philosophical passages, while the owner inscribing the head of the title-page commented on two musical essays at pp. 231-233.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RHODIGINUS, Caelius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127537487,"sku":"L1764","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Last-Import-12_a9eeeffe-642c-4401-8518-6877f99995a2.jpg?v=1781795273"},{"product_id":"egnatius-giovanni-battista","title":"EGNATIUS, Giovanni Battista","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of this curious collection of exemplary episodes, issued in Paris some months after the princeps of Venice the same year. Giovanni Battista Cipelli (1478-1553), better known by his humanist nickname Egnatius, was a prominent scholar in Renaissance Venice and a trusted collaborator of Aldus Manutius. Very knowledgeable in Latin and Greek, he taught in the School of St Marcus and was appointed official orator of the Venetian Republic. On account of his philological, editorial and teaching skills, he was held in high esteem by Pietro Bembo, Marco Musuro, Marco Antonio Sabellico and even Wilibald Pirckheimer and Erasmus. His most successful work was De Caesaribus, a learned overview of the lives of the Roman, Byzantine, Frankish and German emperors, up to Maximilian I of Augsburg. An extract of the second book circulated independently as an essay on the origins of the Turks. Following the model of Valerius Maximus, Egnatius assembled a vast number of edifying stories from the lives of Venetians and other illustrious personalities of the past and present. It is divided into nine books and each of the numerous chapters is devoted to a topic (either virtue or vice). Book 8 includes a note on the invention of printing (f. 300rv) and a praise of Columbus (f. 301v). Muslims and Ottomans are also frequently mentioned, with several examples drawn especially from the life of Saladin (ff. 172r, 237rv, 242v, 265v, 326r). ). The work was published posthumously by Marco Molin, the son of Egnatius s heir and friend. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This is a copy of the first of the eighteen books published in Paris by Bernardo Torresano on behalf of the Aldine Press over the 1550s and 1560s. Bernardo was the grandson of Andrea Torresano, father-in-law and business partner of Aldus Manutius. The Aldine enterprise tried several times to set up a branch or at least have a trusted dealer in Paris, but the attempts were all quite short-lasting and little fruitful.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"EGNATIUS, Giovanni Battista","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816128553295,"sku":"L2015","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2015-Egnatius-1.jpg?v=1781795268"},{"product_id":"ketham-johannes-de","title":"KETHAM, Johannes de","description":"\u003cp\u003eEarly edition of a masterpiece of the Renaissance art of the book, revised and expanded after the princeps of 1491. Little, if anything, is known about Kentham, who has been identified as Johannes von Kirchheim, a professor from Swabia teaching medicine in Vienna around 1460. Rather than the author of this influential collection of medical essays, he appears to be the owner of the manuscript used by the printer of the first edition who mistakenly took him for the compiler. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The work enjoyed great success and was soon translated into Italian, German and Spanish. This imprint includes Mondino de Luzzi s Anatomia and the treatise on venoms of his pupil and commentator, Alessandro Achillini; most importantly, it retains all the superb apparatus of illustrations designed for the Italian translation of the Fasciculus published in Venice in 1493 by the de Gregorii brothers, incorporating also the minor changes introduced in the later reprints of 1500 and 1513. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The typography and artistic qualities of this edition [Venice, 1493] of the Fasciculus make it of interest far beyond the world of medicine. It was the first printed medical book to be illustrated with a series of realistic figures: these include a Zodiac man, bloodletting man, planet man, an urinoscopic consultation, a pregnant woman and notably a dissection scene which is one of the first and finest representation of this operation to appear in any book (...) Most of these figures have medieval prototypes, but they are here designed by an artist of the first rank. His identity has never been discovered; it has been suggested   wrongly   that he was the Polifilo master; but he was certainly an artist close to the Bellini school.  PMM, p. 20.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"KETHAM, Johannes de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816130486607,"sku":"K32","price":29500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K32-1.jpg?v=1781795265"},{"product_id":"more-st-thomas","title":"MORE, St. Thomas","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the first French translation of Sir Thomas More s  Utopia,  by Jean Le Blond d Evreux, lawyer, poet, and champion of the French language. Le Blond s one great chance, as he recognized, was to bring himself to the attention of the elite of the French-speaking world; it did not succeed and Le Blond is only gradually being rediscovered. His translation includes also the prefatory address from Bud é to Thomas Lupet. \u003cbr\u003e\n By far the most important of More's Latin works was the Utopia, the pre-eminent humanistic dialogue, appealing for the application of wisdom in the life and government of men and at the same time a delightful work of entertainment and irony. The origin of a new word in the English language (and subsequently in many others), the work was the model or source for innumerable 'Utopias' or 'distopias', from Bacon's 'New Atlantis' in the C17, to Swift in the C18, to Huxley and Orwell in the C20. It was More's greatest literary work, achieving immediate international success, probably the most significant and enduring by any Englishman of the age. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n \"It was written, like Gulliver's Travels (...) as a tract for the times to rub in the lesson of Erasmus; it inveighs against the new statesmanship of an all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education. (...) Utopia is not, as often imagined, More's ideal state; it exemplifies only the virtues of wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice. It reflects the moral poverty of the states which More knew, whose Christian rulers should possess also the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity. (...) [More] is both a saint to the Catholic and a predecessor of Marx to the Communist. His manifesto is and will be required reading for both, and for all shades of opinion between.\" Printing and the Mind of Man 47, on the first edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORE, St. Thomas","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816130519375,"sku":"K40","price":29500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K40-More-2.1.jpg?v=1781795264"},{"product_id":"boccaccio-giovanni-1","title":"BOCCACCIO, Giovanni","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe elegant binding provides a good example, unusual in shape, of the essential Venetian style of the second quarter of the sixteenth century (gilt external panel with apple leaves at internal or external corners, central title in capitals), which was brought to perfection by the so-called Mendoza Binder, recently identified as Andrea di Lorenzo. Though not his work, this was executed by a capable binder, probably pre-dating Andrea by a few years. The gilt initials on the rear cover appear to be those of the owner, perhaps pointing towards a member of the Venetian noble families of Mocenigo or Morosini, bearing the traditional names of Marco or Michele.  Early and accurate imprint of Boccaccio s Corbaccio (or Labirinto d amore) and his epistle to Pino de  Rossi, both first published in 1487 in Florence. With Petrarch, Boccaccio laid the foundations for the humanism of the Renaissance and raised vernacular literature to the level and status of the classics of antiquity. His vivid prose was taken as a model by the sixteenth-century Renaissance scholars in their attempts to create a common written language for the Italian peninsula. Corbaccio (The Crow) recounts the dream of a young man, suffering from his unrequited love for a widow. It is essentially a misogynist invective, contradicting Boccaccio s sympathies for the fairer sex expressed in many others works.   It is still not clear whether Corbaccio should be read as autobiographical or as a literary exercise adopting the anti-feminist point of view but ultimately dealing with torment of love. Written after the political crisis of 1360 in the Commune of Florence, the letter of consolation to Pino de  Rossi, an exiled Florentine statesman, reflects Boccaccio s disillusion with politics and his faith in the rise of a new cultural era opened up by Petrarch s studies of classical literature. The preface by the publisher Bernardo Giunta is of particular interest. It addresses  gli amatori della Lingua Toscana,  i.e. the humanists writing in Italian vernacular, who were praised for their constant effort to re-establish this style as a literary language, as it used to be in the time of Boccaccio.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOCCACCIO, Giovanni","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816131928399,"sku":"L2001","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2001-Boccaccio-1-e1449160600969.jpg?v=1781795259"},{"product_id":"flittner-johann","title":"FLITTNER, Johann","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the Latin versification of Thomas Murner's ruthless satire Der Schelmen Zunft ( The League of Rogues ), published in 1512. Not to be confused with the contemporary Evangelic pastor and prominent hymn-writer, Johann Flittner was born in Schleusingen, became  Gerichts-Procurator  in Frankfurt, and was appointed poet laureate of the Holy Roman Empire around 1620. This Latin translation after Murner   the early sixteenth-century master of satiric pamphlets who penned, i.a., a harsh parody of Luther   was Flittner s most relevant and successful achievement.   It consists of a series of 33 erudite jokes in the form of illustrated verses against personal vice. Everything is taken and represented in its literal meaning, creating some funny emblems like the one depicting strict censors as people who  go around sifting excrement.  Very fittingly, the work opens with a dedicatory epigram to Momus, the Greek god of mockery, which illustrates the meaning of the title ( Rascal of Rascals: A Teasing Reproach of Contemporary Idleness ).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FLITTNER, Johann","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816132419919,"sku":"L2143","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2143-Flittner-1.jpg?v=1781795256"},{"product_id":"manuzio-paolo-ed","title":"MANUZIO, Paolo (ed.)","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare second edition (first in France) of a very successful collection of letters to or from illustrious personalities of the Italian Renaissance. On account of the success encountered in France by Aldine editions, Bernardo Torresani, grandson of Aldus s partner Andrea, established a separate branch of the press in Paris in 1554. This collection, brought together by Paolo Manuzio, is comprised of epistles written within the thriving intellectual milieu of Padua and Venice as well as the heterodox religious circle following Juan de Vald és s teaching. Amongst the correspondents are: Jacopo Sadoleto, Reginal Pole, Lazzaro Bonamico, Pietro Bembo, Paul III, Benedetto Ramberti, Gasparo Contarini, Pietro Carnesecchi, Gian Battista Ramusio, Pierre Bunel, Gian Battista Egnazio and Paolo Manuzio himself. One letter is addressed to Aldus from the humanist Janus Parrhasius.  Gilding and hand-colouring the Aldine device was a rather common practice in eighteenth-century France amongst wealthy collectors. For instance, the Marquise of Pompidou (1721-1764), the powerful chief mistress of Louis XV and bibliophile, had  her Aldine edition of the Cortegiano 1528 painted in pink, blue and silver (BL: 674.k.15), casting on the anchor and dolphin an unexpectedly fashionable aura.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANUZIO, Paolo (ed.)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816134222159,"sku":"L2266","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0732-rotated.jpg?v=1781795216"},{"product_id":"erasmus-desiderius","title":"ERASMUS, Desiderius","description":"\u003cp\u003eEarly and accurate edition of a Renaissance bestseller for letter-writing, first printed in 1522. Erasmus (1466-1536) was by far the most influential humanist of his time, especially as regards education in classics. De conscribendis epistolis was Erasmus s second most famous rhetorical textbook after De copia verborum, appearing in ninety editions. Written in Cambridge between 1509 and 1511, a unauthorised edition of the text came out in 1521 upon the initiative of a former student. This prompted Erasmus to publish in Basel his own full edition. Simon de Colines (c.1480 -1546) was a highly skilled printer, who was trained by Henry Estienne, led the Estienne workshop until Robert entered the business in 1526 and then became an independent and distinguished publisher in Paris. He was renowned for the beauty of his Roman, Greek and Italic fonts. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This handsome binding, made in Leuven about 1545, shows a distinctive central plate illustrating a personification of Hope standing on a plinth (representing Faith as a solid ground) and looking up towards a cross (named as  Christ s service  for mankind) in the sky. This iconography appears to be influenced by the pietism of the Brethren of the Common Life, a religious movement flourished in the Netherlands from mid-fourteenth century on. According to Foot (vol. II, p. 359),  there are four variants of this Spes panel: two are signed I P, one with and one without the word  charitas , and two signed I B, also one with and one without  charitas   (see also S. Fogelmark, Flemish and Related Panel-Stamped Bindings: Evidence and Principles, 1990, pp. 157-169). The present one, signed by I P, is without the mention of charity, i.e. the third theological virtue along with hope and faith. The surrounding quotations from the Psalms are written in Roman capitals and, very exceptionally for blind-tooled inscriptions on bindings, in Italic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ERASMUS, Desiderius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816134517071,"sku":"L2168","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0876-e1516207039518.jpg?v=1781795213"},{"product_id":"freig-johannes-thomas","title":"FREIG, Johannes Thomas","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this interesting and popular early school book, intended as  an introduction to all the subjects of humanist education.  German philosopher and jurist, the Calvinist Johannes Thomas Freig (1543-1583) was a pupil and the first biographer of the famous teacher and educational reformer Pierre de La Ram ée (Ramus). Freig was professor of logic and rhetoric in Freiburg and Basel, later becoming rector of the school at Altdorf. He studied Cicero s works and extensively wrote on philosophy. He also was responsible for the influential  Latina grammatica pro schola Altorfina Noribergensium  (1580).  Freig was inspired by the Ramist logical method according to which discourse is founded on arguments or commonplaces. The  Paedagogus  summarises the ideal curriculum focused on classical learning and religious education in the biblical languages (Greek, Hebrew and Latin), by means of dichotomous tables and an analysis expounded in the form of question and answer. The work starts with Freig s dedicatory letter to the prince of Marche (Italy) Giovanni Martino Amelio, providing information on the work s contents and recalling the friendship between the noble Amelio and his father, Nicholas Freig. Then, after a classification of the liberal arts, including a reference list of the most important authors - mainly classical - and a Latin epigram by the French poet Bartelon Pantale√≥n from Ravières (Bourgogne), the work is divided into 24 chapters each dealing with a different subject. They concern Latin, Greek and Hebrew grammar, with particular attention to classical and biblical (Psalms) texts; French conversation on various cultural topics (wine,  food, places of the house); rhetoric (figures of speech); poetics; logic; geometry (the axis and its use in astronomy and measuring of land; coining); architecture (materials, buildings and their arrangement, with a paragraph on the library); physics, based on Tolomeus  model; then ethics, economics, politics, military activities (armies, armour, encampment); history; law and medicine (diseases and their symptoms, with a section on the plague).  The chapter on music is the largest and highlights the distance between theory and musical practice. It especially concerns vocal music together with vernacular psalmody and Latin hymns. Recommended books are Boethius s and Heinrich Glarean s Dodecachordon (1547).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FREIG, Johannes Thomas","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816136089935,"sku":"L2504","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5002-e1504965343566.jpg?v=1781795208"},{"product_id":"clement-of-alexandria","title":"CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very good, crisp copy on thick paper of the editio princeps of Clement of Alexandria’s complete extant works, edited by the humanist Pietro Vettori. A Church Father and saint, Clement (c.150-215) converted to Christianity in his youth and studied at the Catechetical School of Alexandria, where he became professor. His thought was imbued with Greek philosophy and he had an excellent knowledge of pre-Christian cults. The ‘Protrepticus’ (‘ ’) is an exhortation to the Greeks to convert to Christianity in which Clement displays his mastery of their theology and mythology. The ‘Pedagogus’ (‘ ’) illustrates how to live according to a Christian ethics and in imitation of Christ. The ‘Stromata’ (‘ ’) is an eclectic work in three books, concerned with Greek philosophy, faith, asceticism, martyrdom, Greek poetry and prophetic biblical books.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLorenzo Torrentino (1499-1563) was appointed printer to Cosimo de’ Medici in 1547. Thanks to the handsome rounded types from his Brabant press, he overcame competitors like the Giunti, and produced for the Medici Press over 250 editions in two decades. Among those who convinced Cosimo to hire an official printer was Pietro Vettori (1499-1585), who planned to publish editiones principes of Greek texts to ‘rescue them from the ruins of time’. In his dedication to Cardinal Marcello Cervino, Vettori calls this edition a ‘monument to a saint and a very learned mind’.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe remarkable provenance is traced to Abraham Ortelius (1527-98), Flemish cartographer and the father of the modern atlas. Published in over 25 editions before 1600, his ‘Theatrum orbis terrarum’ (1570) introduced maps into the everyday life of the early modern middle classes and changed the way European civilisation understood world geography. As stated in the 1606 English edition, Ortelius’s library was ‘well-stocked with all kinds of books, so that his house might truly be called a shop of all manners of learning’. This copy sheds light on Ortelius’s interest in Greek texts; until now only one—Suidas’s ‘Lexicon’ (Basle, 1544)—has been assigned to his library, which bears a similar casemark (G\/ckb\/) to this copy (F\/ck\/). Ortelius discussed Greek editions with the humanist Isaac Casaubon and Bonaventura Vulcanius, professor of Greek and Latin at Cologne and Leiden.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe C14 mss in the pastedown are taken from ‘Sermones dominicales Parisienses’ and ‘Summae virtutum ac vitiorum’ by Guillaume Perault (1190-1271), a Dominican preacher and writer.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816139923791,"sku":"K113","price":20000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K113.jpg?v=1781795185"},{"product_id":"le-roy-louis","title":"LE ROY, Louis","description":"\u003cp\u003eGood first edition of Louis Le Roy s much admired and curious work on the mutability of the universe, in its Italian translation by the humanist Ercole Cato. Le Roy (1510?-77) was a humanist, political writer and historian renowned for his translations of Greek authors, including Aristotle and Plato, into French.  De la vicissitudine , first published in French in 1575, was his last work and a definitive compendium of his prismatic ideas on history, politics, letters and philosophy. The main subject of the work are  the variety and vicissitudes of men, peoples, cities, republics, kingdoms and empires . A blend of the classical and Christian traditions inspired by the cultural syncretism of Italian humanism, it concentrates on change inspired by the Renaissance concepts of  mutability  and  variety  as the principle responsible for all historical mutations, from migrations to wars, the history of civilisations, the making and unmaking of the physical world through interactions between the four elements. These mutations, Le Roy argued, are kept together by divine providence which prevents such balance of contraries from turning into chaos. In the section where Le Roy explains the simultaneous creation and eventual end of the Heavens and Stars, the owner of this copy concealed with a pasted slip:  when the Universe will have dissolved, returning to the ancient Chaos and original darkness . Le Roy was especially attracted by the birth, development and ruin of civilisations, which he explored through the medieval model of universal history embracing the origins of man to the present. The work ends in a sombre tone, with a prophetical message based on the warnings of the past, that the climax of European civilisation might soon be undone by new invading peoples, plagues and wars.     Niccol√≤ Manassi (fl. 1590), a scholar and author of the preface, was entrusted with the Venetian Aldine press from 1585, when Aldus the Younger moved to Rome to run the Vatican press.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LE ROY, Louis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816141300047,"sku":"L2717","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2717.jpg?v=1781795178"},{"product_id":"reserved-6","title":"RESERVED","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the Latin works of St. Thomas More, a collection of five works and 13 letters, containing the Utopia, the Epigrammata, the translation of Lucian and the epistle to Dionysius, finely printed by Froben, including a beautiful full page woodcut of the island of  Utopia . The Utopia, based on Froben s edition of 1518, includes the prefatory letters of Erasmus to Johannes Froben, Guillaume Bud é to Thomas Lupset, Pierre Gillis to Jerome Busleyden, Thomas More to Peter Gillis and Jerome Busleyden to Thomas More. It also includes the annotations by Erasmus. The Epigrammata is based on the revised first separate edition, also printed by Froben, in 1520, including the dedicatory letter to the German humanist Willibald Pirckheimer by Beatus Rhenanus (a well known editor of classical texts, an associate of Froben, and a friend of both Erassmus and Pirckheimer) in which he writes glowingly about More and his epigrams praising his wit, language, style, learning and ability as both translator and composer. By far the most important of More's Latin works was the Utopia, the pre-eminent humanistic dialogue, appealing for the application of wisdom in the life and government of men, but at the same time a delightful work of entertainment and irony. The origin of a new word in the English language (and subsequently in many others), the work was the model or source for innumerable 'Utopias' or 'distopias', from Bacon's 'New Atlantis' in the C17, through Swift in the C18, to Huxley and Orwell in the C20. It was More's greatest literary work, achieving immediate international success, and probably the most significant and enduring by any Englishman of the age. \"It was written, like Gulliver's Travels ... as a tract for the times to rub in the lesson of Erasmus; it inveighs against the new statesmanship of an all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education ... Utopia is not, as often imagined, More's ideal state; it exemplifies only the virtues of wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice. It reflects the moral poverty of the states which More knew, whose Christian rulers should possess also the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity ... [More] is both a saint to the Catholic and a predecessor of Marx to the Communist. His manifesto is and will be required reading for both, and for all shades of opinion between\" Printing and the Mind of Man 47, on the 1st edn. \u003cbr\u003e\n This copy is particularly interesting as it is preserved in a contemporary English binding showing the work was imported to the UK shortly after its publication, despite Thomas More s then status in England as a  traitor . John Venn in his Biographical History of Gonville and Caius College records a donation made by a  Thomas Thruston MD, fellow commoner , who left all his medical books and ¬£50 to the college circa 1700, most probably the same Thomas Thruston who once owned this work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RESERVED","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816141463887,"sku":"K81","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K81-7.jpg?v=1781795176"},{"product_id":"rossi-girolamo","title":"ROSSI, Girolamo","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this important and extensive work in ten books on the civil, religious and artistic history of Ravenna, from its origins until the C16th, by Girolamo Rossi (1539-1607), member of an illustrious family from Parma and a well known historian and physician at Pope Clement VIII s court.   The work is unique in the historiography on cities gathering a number of literary sources from the classical to the early modern age, as well as of documents from the archives of Rome and Ravenna. Several centuries of history are embraced. Starting from the pre-Roman age, the book describes Ravenna as the capital of the Western Empire (402-476), the reigns of Odoacre and Teodorico, the Byzantine Exarchate, until the time of the city-state and aristocratic government under the Traversari and Da Polenta families, and eventually, Venetian (1441-1509) and ecclesiastical dominion.   The work is complex but well structured, with a rich paratext including a dedication to the cardinal Giulio Feltrio della Rovere (23 February 1571), which celebrates Ravenna Church and its relationship with Rome; then poems in Latin by contemporary scholars, particularly Orazio Toscanella, Natalino Conti and Vincenzio Carrari, praising Rossi s work and Ravenna s eternal fame; a letter to Ravenna where the author expresses his gratitude to the civil authorities for supporting him and his family. Then follows a detailed index of names, the text of the ten books and genealogical trees of the Traversari and Da Polenta families.  Each book methodically focuses on a period of Ravenna s history and is divided into different sections providing also information on topography, Christian culture and architecture. For instance, the first book concerns the mythic foundation of the city by descendants of Noah and the etymology of the name; the sixth regards numerous events across a wide range of time (Frederick Barbarossa s stay, support for the Crusaders, Frederick II s reign, Dante and the crisis of the aristocratic government); the eighth is on the period 1500-1513 and includes many pages on Cesare Borgia, Margherita da Rossi and Pope Giulio II; books nine and ten describe events from 1513 to the 1568, with references to Papal politics, Guicciardini and the author s public life; the tenth is mainly dedicated to the age of the archbishop Giulio della Rovere (1563-66).  The work is written in an elegant Latin and shows Rossi s encyclopaedic culture which ranges from law to hagiography, from medicine to astronomy, with a keen interest in architecture and urban planning. Rossi minutely describes famous religious buildings, such as the churches Basilica of San Vitale and San Giovanni Evangelista, giving valuable evidence of a series of monuments since destroyed.  Countless inscriptions, letters, biographies and legal acts are quoted (Mario Pierpaoli,  Girolamo Rossi, medico e storico ravennate , Ravenna 1996), as are classical, medieval, and contemporary authorities.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ROSSI, Girolamo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816145494351,"sku":"L2374","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_2390.jpg?v=1781794947"},{"product_id":"barberini-maffeo-pope-urban-viii","title":"BARBERINI, Maffeo [POPE URBAN VIII]","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe beautifully gilt binding appears to borrow, with plainer intentions, the design and rhombus-shaped decorations on BL C108h12, produced c.1630s by the Rospigliosi bindery (i.e., Gregorio and Giovanni Andreoli) in Rome. Very good, crisp copy, in fine impression, of Maffeo Barberini s  Poemata . Born in Florence, Barberini (1568-1644) was educated by the Society of Jesus in Rome and earned a doctorate in law at Pisa. Thanks to his uncle, Pope Clement VIII, he was appointed papal legate at the French court. In 1623, he was elected Pope with the name of Urban VIII; during his pontificate, Galileo was called to Rome to disown his cosmological theories. A great patron of scholars and artists like Athanasius Kircher and Claude Lorraine, Barberini was himself a talented poet. First printed in Venice in 1628,  Poemata  gathers his most important compositions in Latin and Greek, from biblical paraphrases to reflections on virtues and vices, poems addressed to scholarly friends and relatives, odes to saints and even musings elicited by the sight of beautiful statues. The collection blends the versatile erudition of late humanism, the jovial nature of  alba amicorum  and the darker undertones of international politics. Three poems are devoted to the seminal studies on the  marvels  of the animal and botanical world written by Ulisse Aldrovandi,  guardian of Nature . Another celebrates the saintly death of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, beheaded in 1587; the darkness which has covered the earth is lit up not by the burning torches at her funeral but by the stars in the heavens.  De sole et ape  provides a key to the typographical iconography of the volume, decorated with shining suns and the bees of the Barberini. The explanation of the emblematic motifs is that bees  wax can survive the heat of fire, be used to make torches and, like the sun, can chase darkness away. This edition the second to be printed by the  Typographia Camerae Apostolicae  which had retained the privilege since 1631 was advertised as revised and re-set with new and more elegant types.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BARBERINI, Maffeo [POPE URBAN VIII]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816146739535,"sku":"L2705","price":3500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2705-1.jpg?v=1781794938"},{"product_id":"baudouin-francis","title":"BAUDOUIN, Francis","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn excellent copy of this sammelband of works by the French humanist Francois Baudouin, large copies, beautifully printed in Basle by Oporinus. Baudouin was an eminent French humanist jurist and theologian. Interested in the early history of Roman law, he emphasized the importance of history in the development of the law. The first volume is one of his principal legal works, De Legibus XII Tabularum, a study of the history and significance of the Twelve Tables. The last title addresses the legal status of the early Christian Church. Although a legal scholar Baudouin was, perhaps inevitably in mid C16th France, caught up in the religious conflicts of the period.  At first possessed of filial devotion to Calvin, François Baudouin, with his love of the Law and the tools necessary for legal study (grammar, philology, and history) developed a doctrine of the church wholly at odds with that of Calvin. While Baudouin s transformation occured over the course of years, his final break with Calvin came with a swift ferocity and a violent animosity. Francois Baudouin s early life mirrored Calvin s: both began their higher education in the study of law, both had the same legal and humanist influences, and both subsequently embraced the reformation, resulting in their exiles. The trajectory of Baudouin s Protestant pilgrimage reached its zenith in 1547, when he served as Calvin s secretary, living in Calvin s home. The denouement of Baudouin s journey,.., took him back to the Catholic church, informed far more by humanism than theology. .. the move also included a strong ecclesiological bent, one that produced rancorous diatribes between Baudouin and Geneva.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A most interesting early English provenance. The book was owned by the British classical scholar John Price, bought by him in Rouen in 1632. He was both an author and publisher and had an extensive library and published several works himself including commentaries on the New Testament. He was a Roman Catholic who described himself as  Anglo-Britannus . In 1635 he published the Apologia of Apuleius at Paris. From 1652 the Medicis employed him as their  keeper of coins . He was also appointed professor of Greek at Pisa. In 1661 he moved, under patronage of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, to Rome where he died in 1676. Rouen was an important centre for publishing outside of Paris.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BAUDOUIN, Francis","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816154308943,"sku":"L2632","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG-20190404-WA0030.jpg?v=1781794922"},{"product_id":"hall-joseph-3","title":"HALL, Joseph","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of some of the works of the celebrated theologian and author Joseph Hall, published four years after his death containing many as yet unpublished including two important pieces of autobiography, many of his unpublished sermons on a multitude of subjects, and several controversial writings. The two autobiographical works are  Observations of some Specialities of Divine Providence In the Life of Jos. Hall, Bishop of Norwich  and his tract  Hard Measure  which details the severe treatment to which himself and other prelates were subjected under Parliament during Charles  reign.  Hall is responsible for initiating several literary genres. In his own day, he was acknowledged as a  leader of literary fashion . Tom Fleming Kinloch describes him as a pioneer in more than one branch of literature. Hall has been regarded by scholars mainly as a master of satire. John Milton criticised Hall s writings [but] despite Milton s criticism there have been many voices praising Hall s contributions to English literature. Arnold Davenport quotes Pope, who found Hall s satirical works to be amongst the best poetry and authentic satire in the English language.  Damrau  The Reception of English Puritan Literature in Germany.   Several folio editions of his works were published by the bishop in his lifetime, in 1621, 1625, and 1634. The preface of the first folio has an extravagant laudation of King James, reprinted in the folio of 1634. A small quarto, with a collection of posthumous pieces called  The Shaking of the Olive Tree,  was published in 1660; in 1662 a more complete collection of the bishop s works.  DNB.  Joseph Hall (1574-1656), Bishop of Norwich, poet, moralist, satirist, controversialist (against Milton, i.a.), devotional writer, theological commentator, autobiographer and practical essayist, was one of the leading hommes de lettres of the Jacobean age. He was at the centre of public life under James I representing him at the Synod of Dort in 1618, assisting in his negotiations with the Scots and in Lord Doncaster s French embassy and was foremost among the defenders of the temporal and spiritual powers of the Bishops in the Puritan Parliament of 1640-41. However, it is as a writer that Hall is now remembered. Fuller called him  the English Seneca for his pure, plain, and full style . While Hall may not have been the first English satirist, as he claimed, he certainly introduced the Juvenalian satire into English.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"HALL, Joseph","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816157618511,"sku":"L2223","price":2950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190403_183312.jpg?v=1781794902"},{"product_id":"rabelais-francois-2","title":"RABELAIS, Francois","description":"\u003cp\u003eA beautifully illustrated counterfeit edition of the major works of Rabelais, copying the celebrated Valence edition of 1547. The illustration is composed of a series of 167 vignettes in the Lyon-style, a very charming form of popular imagery, many of which appear to have been copied from the first edition. The quality of the printing is clearer than in the original; Brunet  Dans cette contrefaçon, les figures sont un peu plus nettes que dans l original . Many early edns. of the various parts of Rabelais  works do not state the printer or place of publication, or in a few cases give false information, owing to the ribald and in places anti-clerical subject-matter, which exposed his works to censorship: they had, for example, been on the papal Index since at least 1559. Due to the nature of their clandestine printing they were often cheaply and hastily printed and they were popular works, usually well read, so good copies such as this one are particularly rare. The editors here went to a good deal more trouble than in other counterfeit editions of the period, such as those printed by Fuet or Martin, with its very charming suite of illustration.  Rabelais was, for generations, read only in distorting editions which generated jokes of their own. All his Greek was turned into gibberish; careless arrangement of material by printers led Sterne to believe that Rabelais was sporting typographically with his reader by displacing a poem or by leaving blanks   hence the blanked-out chapter in Tristram Shandy. These editions   sometimes printed clandestinely in France   kept Rabelais alive but helped to create a  Rabelais legend  which had nothing to do with the works he wrote. Montaigne enjoyed Rabelais, finding him at least  simplement plaisant  ( straightforwardly delightful ). Molière assumed that his audience enjoyed him too. And they did. For many Frenchmen Rabelais embodies that Gaulois humour which they love to see as a permanent element in the national character.  M. A. Screech. London Review of Books. Vol. 6 No. 17 ¬∑ 20 September 1984. pages 11-13    With an immense erudition, representing almost the whole knowledge of his time, with an untiring faculty of invention, with the judgement of a philosopher and the common sense of a man of the world, with an observation which let no characteristic of the time pass unobserved and with a ten-fold portion of the special Gallic gift of good-humoured satire, Rabelais united a height of speculation and depth of insight and vein of poetical imagination rarely found in any writer  his work is the mirror of the C16th. in France, reflecting at once its comeliness and its uncomeliness, its high aspirations, its voluptuous tastes, its political and religious dimensions, its keen criticism, its eager appetite and hasty digestions of learning, its gleans of poetry and its ferocity of manners . Enc. Brit. 13th. ed.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RABELAIS, Francois","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816159158607,"sku":"L3067","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-33-copy.jpg?v=1781794900"},{"product_id":"mexia-pedro","title":"MEXIA, Pedro","description":"\u003cp\u003eA stunning copy of this work, the second edition of the English translation by Traheron of Mexia s  Historia imperial y ces√°rea , enlarged by the historian Edward Grimstone, in a remarkable Royal binding for Charles I. This work was printed the same year as Charles  trip to Spain for the  Spanish match .  The other English-Spanish translation published in this annus mirabilis was an edition of Pedro de Mexia s The Imperiall Historie, first published in 1604, with additional material written by the Sergeant at arms Edward Grimestone and dedicated to Lionel Cranfield the Lord High Treasurer.  Alexander Samson  The Spanish Match: Prince Charles s Journey to Madrid, 1623 . The superb binding is similar in style and structure to one in the BL shelfmark c18c4, also with a dentelle border with an all over semi of small tools around the arms of Charles I. It is the work of the highest quality using the finest materials. It was most probably made for Charles  library, and not just for one of the Royal chapels. It is hardly a coincidence that this work was published the year of Charles I s trip to Spain for the  Spanish Match , and the combination of this work in this binding would suggest a presentation copy to Charles, probably from Grimestone. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  One of the later royal historians appointed in the age of Charles V, Mexia shared with his predecessor the distinction of writing a text that was popular both in Spain and abroad. Eight Castilian editions of his Historia Imperial y Cesarea were printed between 1545 and 1665 in Seville, Madrid, Basel and Antwerp. The Italian translation by Ludovico Dolce was even more successful. Between 1558 and 1688 at least seventeen Italian editions were printed in Venice, some of which included the lives of Charles V, Maximilian II, and Ferdinand. A German translation was printed in Basel in 1564, and two English translations by William Traheron and Edward Grimestone were published in London in 1604 and 1623, respectively. In total, at least twenty-eight editions were printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, making it the most successful of the Spanish Imperial histories after that of Guevara. It surpassed Guevara, however, in the influence and reputation that it enjoyed in Spain, where it was considered a fundamental work by the educated class in the later half of the sixteenth century. Viewed as free of lies and exagerations of chivalric literature, the Historia Imperial was considered by some contemporaries to be the first general work of humanist history written in Castilian.  Thomas James Dandelet.  The Renaissance of Empire in Early Modern Europe.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Grimeston wrote a number of  continuations  to large scholarly works including two editions of the Historie of France .. and his translation of Pedro Mexia s The Imperiall Historie (1623) whose continuation had some topical overlap with Grimeston s continuation for the third edition of the History (1621) . Anders Ingram.  English Literature on the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A stunning Royal binding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MEXIA, Pedro","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816165941583,"sku":"L3056","price":13500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3056-7.jpg?v=1781794873"},{"product_id":"manuzio-paolo-1","title":"MANUZIO, Paolo","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of one of the most influential Neo-Latin collections in early modern Europe. Paolo Manuzio (1512-1574) was a prominent humanist of the late Italian Renaissance. The youngest son of Aldus, he was a very influential scholar and publisher in his own right, living up to the family tradition. A master of the epistolary genre with very successful collections both in Latin and vernacular, he was especially engaged, as a scholar, in Latin literature. His commentaries on the works of Cicero and his polished Latin prose won him long-lasting fame throughout Europe. Under his management, the Aldine press flourished once again, after the dark times of the early 1530s. He also acted as the official printer to the Academia Venetiana between 1558 and 1561, while in the following nine years he ran the first papal press in Rome. This collection comprises several letters and prefaces written by Paolo to the Gotha of the political, religious and academic establishment of mid-sixteenth-century Italy. The work kept growing over the following 15 years until it included 12 books. However, some self-censorship took place in order to cope with the Indexes of forbidden books issued by Paul IV in 1559 and the Tridentine Council in 1564, so that a few letters appear here for the first, and only, time in their original form. As Renouard sarcastically glossed, Paolo claimed in the initial dedicatory letter that he decided to publish the present collection because of pressure from his fellow members of the Venetian Academy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANUZIO, Paolo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820300640591,"sku":"L2279","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20190313_173722.jpg?v=1781794848"},{"product_id":"manuzio-paolo-2","title":"MANUZIO, Paolo","description":"\u003cp\u003eAldine edition of an important Renaissance commentary on Cicero s most famous epistolary collection, first published in 1547. Paolo Manuzio (1512-1574) was one of the most prominent humanists of the late Italian Renaissance. The youngest son of Aldus, he was a very influential scholar and publisher in his own right, living up to the family tradition. A master of the epistolary genre with very successful collections both in Latin and vernacular, he was especially engaged as a scholar in Latin literature. His commentaries on the works of Cicero and his polished Latin prose won him long-lasting fame throughout Europe. Under his management, the Aldine press flourished once again, after the dark times of the early 1530s. He also acted as the official printer to the Academia Venetiana between 1558 and 1561, while in the following nine years he ran the first papal press in Rome. Cicero s letters to his friend Atticus, written from 68 to 44 BC and traditionally arranged in 16 books, provide an unparalleled insight not only into the author s daily life and always provoking thoughts, but also into the decades preceding the fall of the Roman Republic.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MANUZIO, Paolo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820305621327,"sku":"L2293b","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/frontcover_6593e793-ca55-4c2b-abac-df61f8f48016.png?v=1781794849"},{"product_id":"roseo-da-fabriano-mambrino","title":"ROSEO DA FABRIANO, Mambrino","description":"Superbly bound studied and portrayed in Hobson \u0026amp; Culot,  Italian and French C16 Bookbindings , n.11 (pp.36-37), from the library of Michel Wittock, a major C20 collector of fine bindings. The binding bears the trademark tools small ivy leaves, lotus tools and the apple-shaped centrepiece, here flanked by the owner s initials (e.g., de Marinis I, 2162 and 1707, and Henry Davis Gift II, 293-95) of the Venetian Apple Binder (so named by M. Foot), active c.1530-50s (Henry Davis Gift I, 309-15). He is also known as Fugger Binder (preferred by Hobson and Schunke), as most of the books in the bibliophile Johann Jakob Fugger s library came from his workshop; he also worked for Cardinal Granvelle and Thomas Mahieu. The same gilt initials AA flanking the apple tool are present on similar bindings gracing five other works (one unnoticed by Hobson \u0026amp; Culot, now Folger 182-313q), all printed in Venice between 1527 and 1546. According to Hobson \u0026amp; Culot,  it is possible though this is pure guesswork that A A stands for Arnoldus Arlenius, of s Hertogenbosch, who in 1546 was employed in Venice as the librarian of the Spanish ambassador, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza . Mendoza, himself a renowned bibliophile, was employing a Venetian binder, Andrea di Lorenzo, who used very similar tools to the Apple Binder.\r \r This most influential and much reprinted  mirror for princes  was originally published in Castilian as  Relox de Pr‚àö‚â†ncipes  (Valladolid, 1529) by the Franciscan Antonio de Guevara (1481-1545). It first appeared in Italian in 1543 in a shortened form, translated and revised by Mambrino Roseo da Fabriano. Guevara s  Relox  was divided into three sections brought together by the protagonist, the Philosopher-Emperor Marcus Aurelius instructing Princes on the importance of Christian faith, their relationship with their wife and children, and political virtues. Reprinted nearly two dozen times in the C16, Mambrino s translation was a collection of selected passages, under a title which reprised Erasmus s famous  Institutio Principis Christiani  (Buescu,  Corte , 93).\r \r Simplifying for a wider audience the genre of the  mirror for princes , the  Institutione  gathers exemplary anecdotes from the lives of ancient princes. It includes the customary warnings on the importance of virtue (e.g., patience and understanding of poverty) and the abhorrence of vice which might endanger the state (e.g., flattery and ambition). But it also covers topics closer to a prince s family life. With an eye to a broader readership among aristocrats and the upper middle classes, Mambrino translated sections concerning the fundamental role played by women in the career of a prince, with instructions to princely wives how best to love their spouses, and to their husbands how pregnant princesses should be carefully looked after. A section is also devoted to the education of heirs, and the major role played by nurses; these should be  good orators  and  learned, if possible , women of this kind being still possible to find,  though more rarely, in modern times .","brand":"ROSEO DA FABRIANO, Mambrino","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820344942927,"sku":"L2827","price":9750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L2827-1.jpg?v=1781794821"},{"product_id":"erasmus-with-plutarch","title":"ERASMUS. [with] PLUTARCH.","description":"\u003cp\u003eInteresting, annotated, very scarce Parisian editions of Erasmus s and Plutarch s collections of maxims the second unrecorded in major bibliographies. Erasmus (1466-1536), the greatest humanist and philologist of the northern Renaissance, wrote some of the most important  mirrors for princes  ( Institutio principis Christianis , 1516) and educational works for the elites ( Adagia , 1500). Like the latter,  Apophthegmata  was a collection of sayings gathered from Greek and Latin lives of great personalities including Plutarch, Suetonius and Xenophon, grouped according to the virtue they epitomise. First published in 1531, it is here in a new, revised and enlarged edition. This copy was also marked by a near contemporary censor, as shown by his note on the t-p, stating that  Erasmus s works should be read with caution  and expunged due to his  corruption . Several passages (e.g., one called  Deus insepultus ) were highlighted by the censor, and one was erased with the gloss  vox Erasmi  ( the voice of Erasmus ). From the Index of 1564, Erasmus was included as an author permitted but in need of expurgation; however, this work and the similar  Adagia  were never mentioned specifically or especially targeted (Pabel, 146). The C16 annotator of this copy glossed extensively the dedicatory epistle and the first sections on Agasicles and Agesilaus, kings of Sparta. He was especially interested in material derived from Plutarch s  Apophthegmata Regum et Imperatorum  (of kings and emperors) and  Apophthegmata Laconica  (of Spartans), a very scarce Parisian edition of which, printed in 1507 by Jehan Petit, was bound together with Erasmus s work by an early owner. Plutarch (46-120AD) was a Roman magistrate and ambassador, and one of the most influential authors in the Renaissance for his biographies of the lives of the emperors and great ancient personalities, and wise maxims derived from them. Each is contextualised within a short anecdote from the lives of personalities including Silla, Diogenes, Lycurgus and Periander.  Apophthegmata regum , in the Latin translations by Francesco Filelfo and Raffaele Regio, and  Apophthegmata Laconica , together with  Moralia  in Greek, were Erasmus s models.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ERASMUS. [with] PLUTARCH.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820346581327,"sku":"L3415","price":3350.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9396.jpg?v=1781794810"},{"product_id":"cicero","title":"CICERO","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis very rare, fascinating woodcut stamp a comet with seven points surmounted by a small lily and flanked by AF has defied our attempts at discovering the identity of its mysterious owner, who proudly stamped it 3 times on t-p and once on verso of last. The heraldic route led to the Schinin‚àö‚Ć family of Ragusa, who bear very similar arms, but the keeper of their collection confirmed it is not among the recorded family ex-libris. Its rarity, unusual iconography and absence from major provenance bibliographies suggests it probably belonged to an individual student or young scholar with a small library, or to a small scholarly institution or accademia. If an individual, it was probably someone who did not bear arms he could use for an ownership stamp. The little lily might indicate a Florentine provenance. We could only trace another copy vol.3 of 3 of Cicero s  Orationi  (Venice, 1556), at the Biblioteca Storica in Longiano (M5272) with the same stamp appearing twice on the t-p and twice on the last two ll. That both occurrences appear in mid-C16 student editions of Cicero supports this theory. In the 3-volume Longiano set, only vol.3 bears the stamp, vol.1 having none and vol.2 lacking the first and last gatherings. Both vols 1 and 3 share the same early C17 ms. ex-libris, though vol.3 is sewn differently, with 4 instead of 3 stations. This suggests that vol.3, the only one with the stamp, was probably acquired separately by the same early C17 owner who then signed all t-ps. Since this set has since been preserved intact in Longiano, the comet stamp must have already been present when vol.3 was acquired and signed, plausibly dating it no later than c.1600.  A fresh, well-margined copy of the second volume, published separately, of the  Opera Rhetorica , edited by Paulus Manutius. The second edition, the text based on the 1546 and corrected by Manutius. One of the most influential figures of classical antiquity, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43BC) put his legal skills to the service of politics with speeches which became landmarks of forensic oratory. Defined by Quintilian as  eloquence itself , his copious prose production occupied a fundamental place in medieval syllabi. This second volume begins with  De oratore , an immensely influential analysis of how a good orator should construct persuasive arguments which should however be driven by sound ethical principles. There follow  Orator , a description of the perfect orator integrating observations in previous works, and  De claris oratoribus , a history of eloquence through individual figures including Pericles and Solon.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CICERO","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820348416335,"sku":"L3464","price":1850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_1009.jpg?v=1781794803"},{"product_id":"ruscelli-girolamo","title":"RUSCELLI, Girolamo","description":"\u003cp\u003eNewly corrected second edition of the collected letters of Girolamo Ruscelli. The table of contents to each volume illustrates the range of scholars, politicians, authors, military and religious figures Ruscelli had correspondence with. Numerous cardinals, Prince of Carpi Alberto III, the admiral Andrea Doria, Duke of Urbino Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Renaissance author Baldassare Castiglione, the poet Annibale Caro, military leader Pietro Strozzo and Pope Clement VII are included. Ruscelli was a prolific polymath in sixteenth century Italy who published on topics ranging from cartography to alchemy. He lived in a number of cities, eventually settling in Venice where the first edition of Delle Lettere Di Principi was published. Another notable work ascribed to his hand under the pseudonym Alessio Piemontese is  De Secreti Del Alessio Piemontese  which received considerable success and went on to be translated into French, English, German, Latin, Dutch, Spanish, Polish and Danish. These volumes demonstrate the rich social context of Renaissance Venice and Ruscelli himself can be perceived as the epitome of the multi-disciplinary Renaissance man. Scholarship has shown that Ruscelli s other work on Pyrotechnics could have inspired the depictions of fire and explosions common in Titian s paintings (Hills, Paul. Titian s Fire: Pyrotechnics and Representations in Sixteenth-Century Venice, 2007). Ruscelli began collecting these letters in 1562, and Gamba calls these volumes  raccolta pregevolissima.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n More significant is these volumes  provenance. In vol 3 is the engraved bookplate of Edward Gibbon with the recognisable lion and shell family crest. His printed label appears in vol 1. These volumes were sold to Pickering on the 20th December 1934 at Sotheby s important sale of Edward Gibbon s Library. Books from Gibbon s personal collection with this bookplate and name-label can be found in Trinity s Wren Library, confirming the volumes were owned by the author of the famous  History . Gibbon owned an extensive library, of which he wrote in his autobiography  I have gradually formed a numerous and select library, the foundation of my works, and the best comfort of my life, both at home and abroad.  At his house on Bentinck Street in Marylebone a catalogue was made of his library in 1777, with 2000 titles in 3300 volumes listed. Keynes refers to Gibbon s  addiction to books  but underlines that his collection was very much a  working library.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Though Gibbon is best known for his Decline and Fall, he was a prolific writer in a variety of other fields. His Miscellaneous Works are a multi-volume coagulation of Gibbon s essays, commentaries and remarks on subjects ranging from the ancient circumnavigation of Africa to Roman triumphal processions. Printed posthumously by Gibbon s long standing friend John Baker Holroyd, 1st Earl of Sheffield, it includes a significant portion of Gibbon s personal correspondence. In this way, Gibbon emulated the practices of Ruscelli himself. From the 1934 Sotheby s sale, a number of books are recorded as being in their original calf binding. These particular volumes appear to have been rebound by Gibbon himself for regular use: Gibbon stated  I am not conscious of having ever bought a book from a motive of ostentation, that every volume, before it was deposited on the shelf, was either read or sufficiently examined. (Keynes, p. 16).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RUSCELLI, Girolamo","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820351562063,"sku":"L3526","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9526.jpg?v=1781794793"},{"product_id":"erasmus-2","title":"ERASMUS","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A very good, clean, well-margined copy of this Erasmian sammelband for school use, comprising two of the most influential works in the Renaissance the second in an edition unknown to Renouard. Erasmus (1466-1536), the greatest humanist and philologist of the northern Renaissance, wrote some of the most important  mirrors for princes  ( Institutio principis Christianis , 1516) and educational works for the elites ( Adagia , 1500), often acquired and bound together. First published in 1512,  De copia , here in its third Colines edition, was  a phenomenally popular treatise of Latin composition  (Schreiber). Prefaced by a letter to the humanist John Colet, whom Erasmus befriended during his stay in England,  De copia  is a manual of amplification, i.e., alternative ways of expressing the same word or concept. After an initial section on the perils of excessive affectation, it provides examples using rhetorical devices (e.g., metalepsis, synecdoche, allegory), the use of contraries, comparisons, synonyms or periphrasis, or examples such as the use of  fabulae  (myths), with references to ancient authors. Appended are Erasmus s letters to humanists, including Jakob Wimpheling, on topics including children s education, with mentions of his journey to Basel and the scholars he met.  De ratione , first published in 1511 and here in the second Colines edition, focuses on children s humanist education. The first section is devoted to authors that should be taught (especially Quintilian); the second reproduces an oration on Christ the child which Erasmus delivered at John Colet s school in London (i.e., St Paul s); the third and fourth a  carmen  spoken by Jesus to mortals and a few more exemplifying different poetic metres. This copy was probably in the library of the young Claude Belin (1510-95), later  avocat fiscal  in Amont. In 1565, he was appointed councillor of the Parliament at Dole, an office facilitated by Cardinal Granvelle, with whom Belin entertained a copious correspondence. In 1588, he published a pamphlet on a parricide which took place in his city (Suchaux, I, 32). A lovely copy, in an interesting provincial French binding.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ERASMUS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859628663119,"sku":"L2198","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/1-13.jpg?v=1781793799"},{"product_id":"le-fevre-d-etaples-2","title":"LE FEVRE D ETAPLES.","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery rare first separately published edition of Lef√®vre d'Etaples important and influential introduction to the Politics of Aristotle with the Oeconomicus of Xenophon, translated by Raphael Maffeius and edited by Volgatius Pratensis, published by Henri Estienne for the University of Paris. The volume was probably intended to complement Henri Estienne s edition of the Politics published in 1506. It is extremely rare; worldcat locates only copies of the second Estienne printing of 1512 and no copies have ever appeared for sale according to ABPC. \u003cbr\u003e\n Lef√®vre d Etaple s introduction to the Politics of Aristotle was the most influential and important of the period in France and firmly established Aristotelian Humanism at the heart of the French curriculum. The Oeconomicus by Xenophon, here in the second edition of Maffei s translation (first published Rome 1506), is a Socratic dialogue principally about household management and agriculture. It is one of the earliest works on economics and a significant source for the social and intellectual history of classic Athens. Beyond the emphasis on household economics, the dialogue treats such topics as the qualities and relationships of men and women, rural vs. urban life, slavery, religion, and education. Scholars lean towards a late date in Xenophon's life for the composition of the Oeconomicus, perhaps after 362 BC. Cicero translated the Oeconomicus into Latin. The opening dialogue is between Socrates and Critoboulus, the son of Crito, in which Socrates discusses the meaning of wealth and identifies it with usefulness and well-being, not merely possessions. He links moderation and hard work to success in household management. When Critoboulus asks about the practices involved in household management, Socrates pleads ignorance on the subject but relates what he heard of it from an Athenian gentleman-farmer named Ischomachus. In the discussion related by Socrates, Ischomachus describes the methods he used to educate his wife in housekeeping, their practices in ruling and training slaves, and the technology involved in farming. A very good copy of a most uncommon work, one of the earliest printed by Henri Estienne.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LE FEVRE D ETAPLES.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859646652751,"sku":"L3866","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3866-3.jpg?v=1781793733"},{"product_id":"donelli-hugo-doneau-hugues","title":"DONELLI, HUGO (DONEAU, HUGUES).","description":"\u003cp\u003eImpressively bound collection of two important legal texts by the French law professor Hugues Doneau, known in the Latinised form as Hugo Donelli, or Hugonis Donellus (1527-1591). Doneau studied in Toulouse and Bourges where he was educated in legal humanism by François Douaren, one of the leading proponents of the movement. Because he was a Calvinist, Doneau was forced to flee to Geneva, and took up a professorship at Heidelberg, and later Leiden and Altdorf, where he remained until he died. The scholar was constantly on the run because of his Calvinist beliefs. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Doneau became one of the leading figures in the dogmatic legal humanism movement thanks to the influence of François Douaren and Andrea Alciato. He applied Renaissance humanism to his law practices and legal texts, taking significant inspiration from Roman legal texts. The Comentarii de iure civili is his best known work, written at the end of his life, and focuses on the construction of a coherent system of law, systematising the entirety of Roman law into a logical order rather than the sequence of the books and titles of the Digest by Justinian I. Although the humanists had a minor immediate impact on the practice of law, the long term influence on legal science is notable. In Book I, Doneau makes general points on law, justice and legal sources, II and III examine the law of persons, IV-XVI deal with the law of things and XVII-XXVIII look at the law of actions. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  In the history of European jurisprudence, this magnum opus was an unparalleled achievement, not in method but in dogmatics By way of the pandectists, the modern doctrine of civil law has adopted Doneau s central thoughts, which are rooted in his systematisation and individualisation of civil law.  Hattenhauer, Christian.  Hugues Doneau , Great Christian Jurists in French History, 2019.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DONELLI, HUGO (DONEAU, HUGUES).","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859647078735,"sku":"L3749","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3749-1.jpg?v=1781793731"},{"product_id":"bembo-pietro-with-sannazzaro","title":"BEMBO, Pietro. [with] SANNAZZARO.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A remarkable combination of two classics of Italian literature. This edition of  Gli Asolani  is the .second by Aldus, reprinted from the first of 1505 with the dedication to Bembo s lover Lucrezia .Borgia, which was suppressed from many copies of the first. Sannazzaro s  Arcadia  is also in its .second Aldine edition (first 1514) and it includes Aldus  dedication to the author. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This copy of  Gli Asolani  bears the distinctive signature  Philippes Desportes  of the French .Baroque poet Philippe Desportes (1546-1606), abbot of Tiron (Eure-et-Loire). He is known as the .French Tibullus, for the sweetness and ease of his verses. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Born in Venice, Pietro Bembo (1470-1547) was a scholar, poet, critic and later cardinal. After his .studies at Messina and Padua, he travelled extensively in Italy. His love for the Tuscan vernacular, .which he considered the perfect language for Italian literature, developed during a stay in Florence. .In 1525, he published  Le prose della volgar lingua , a ground-breaking work of philology and .literary criticism celebrating the cultural value of the vernacular versus Latin and electing Dante, .Petrarch and Boccaccio masters of the Tuscan vernacular whose works he also edited as the .highest models for Italian poets. His codification of the Tuscan written dialect as a literary language .constitutes the basis for the development of the modern Italian language.  Gli Asolani  is Bembo s .first important work and a bestseller, comprising a series on dialogues on love set in Asolo (a city in .Veneto). In the first book, the unfortunate lover Perottino talks about the negative aspects of love; in .the second the fortunate Gismondo argues in favour of love s positivity; in the third, Lavinello refutes .both thesis and presents his theory of Platonic love. The Italian noblewoman and femme fatale .Lucrezia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander VI, was among the first to read this work in manuscript .in 1503. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Jacopo Sannazaro (1457-1530) was a Neapolitan poet and humanist, a member of the intellectual .circles of Giovanni Pontano and Frederick of Aragon, King of Naples, whom he briefly followed in .exile to France in 1501. A few years later, he returned to Naples, where he spent the rest of his life. .Interestingly, in the 1520 s, he exchanged letters with Bembo. Sannazaro is most famous for . Arcadia , his masterpiece and an international success. A pastoral romance in verse and prose, . Arcadia  tells the story of the shepherd Sincero (Sannazaro s persona), who abandons the city of .Naples to live among the shepherd-poets in Arcadia. Sannazaro wrote in an elegant vernacular .inspired to the models of Petrarch and Boccaccio and he  was the first Renaissance poet to set his .action in Virgil s hallowed Arcadia ( ) he paid tribute to the continuing effect of Virgil s eclogues .upon the Renaissance imagination by transforming Latin Arcadia to suit the highly developed taste of .contemporary Italian verse  (Kalstone).  Arcadia  circulated in manuscript for a few years, and it .became so popular that unauthorised editions were printed in 1501-1502. Aldus then approached the .author to publish his book, but Sannazaro gave the rights to the Neapolitan Pietro Summonte instead, .who printed the first edition in 1504. All Aldus  following editions are based on Summonte s official .text approved by the author. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .From the library of the John Lea Nevinson (1904-1986), costume historian and British Museum .curator.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BEMBO, Pietro. [with] SANNAZZARO.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859649503567,"sku":"L3875","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_5667-copy.jpg?v=1781793726"},{"product_id":"sallust-2","title":"SALLUST","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Attractive first Aldine edition of the major works of Sallust, in a handsome contemporary Venetian binding. Venice was the first city in Europe to produce gold-tooled bindings, introducing new styles and methods from the Islamic world of the Near East. The gilt design on the covers is stylistically similar to several Aldines, and variations of the fine floral roll appear frequently on Venetian bindings of the period (similar Aldines: see De Marinis II, 1660 and Foot, III, 278: floral roll, see De Marinis II, 1873, 1884, 1894)..  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This edition was  compiled with great care, and throw[s] considerable light on Sallust  (Dibdin). In the dedication to general Bartolomeo Liviano (1455-1515), Aldus explains that the text of Sallust   De coniuratione Catilianae  and  De bello Iughurtino  was edited from two antique manuscripts brought to him from Paris by the humanists Giovanni Lascaris and Giovanni Giocondo. The first work ( Catiline s War ) depicts the corruption in Roman policy through an account of Lucius Sergius Catilina s attempt to overthrow the Roman Republic in the year 63 BC. The second ( Jugurthine War ) records the war against Jugurtha in Numidia from c. 112 to 105 BC, exploring the party struggles that arose in Rome and introducing the rivalry between Marius and Sulla for the first time. This edition also includes Cicero s Catilinarian orations, eight orations by Sallust from his larger work  Historiae  and a series of works today considered spurious. These are: an invective upon Cicero ( Oratio contra Ciceronem ) attributed to Sallust, Cicero s response (Oratio contra Sallustium), and an invective upon Catilina attributed to the rhetor Marcus Porcius Latro. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-35 BC) was a Roman historian and politician, and his works are the oldest surviving historical texts in Latin that can be attached to a known author. An  homo novus  born to a plebeian family, he was a partisan of Caesar during the Civil War of 49 45 BC, an opponent to the old Roman aristocracy and a critic of the moral decline of Rome. Sallust was influenced by the Greek Thucydides and he is the first Latin historian to delineate the characters of historical figures and to explain the connections and meaning of historical events.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This copy bears an early ex-libris of  Joanis Compustella  (likely the Italian  Giovanni Compostella ) and his friends. The Compostella family was an ancient and noble family of Bassano (a city not far from Venice), originally from Spain and known in the Veneto region since 1175 (Enciclopedia storico-nobiliare italiana, Vol II, 1981, p. 520).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SALLUST","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859654648143,"sku":"L3575d","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_1906.jpg?v=1781793714"},{"product_id":"falletti-gerolamo","title":"FALLETTI, Gerolamo.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An attractive, well-margined copy of the first Aldine edition of this interesting collection of Neo-Latin poems, including one on the wars of Charles V in the Low Countries. Gerolamo Falletti (d.1564) studied at Louvain and Ferrara, earning the patronage of Ercole II and Alfonso II d Este. He was later a diplomat for the Serenissima, one of his duties being a visit to Poland after the death of Sigismund I. Dedicated to Ercole II,  De Bello Sicambrico  is a poetic account in 4 books of the siege of Guelders by Charles V in 1542-3. Imbued with humanistic classicism and Virgilian influences, the poem is based on Falletti s first-hand account of the Emperor s attacks against Antwerp and other cities, he took part in the defence of Louvain whilst a student there. The remainder of the collection includes dozens of poems addressed to major personalities of the time, especially Venetian, whom Falletti knew, and concerning specific occasions. For instance, the author Bartolomeo Ricci (who published  De imitatione  with Manutius), Francesco Venier (for whom he provides an obituary), Olimpia Colonna (wife to the Venetian aristocrat Enea Martinengo), and members of the Este family.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .The near contemporary annotator glossed 5 poems in Books VI and VII, and corrected Latin typos throughout. The first annotated poem concerns probably Hippolitus Riminaldus, a Ferrara jurist; the following three, the Flemish poet Nicolaus Grudius, and the fifth, Alfonso d Este. The annotator clarified the classical references in the text (to the Argonauts, Orpheus, etc.), as well as rhetorical techniques employed by Falletti (e.g.,  comparatio ,  hortatio ,  prosopopeia ).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This copy was in the library of the famous British archaeologist and bibliophile Thomas Ashby (1874-1931), also the first student and honorary librarian of the British School in Rome.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FALLETTI, Gerolamo.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859657400655,"sku":"L3770","price":1950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3770-3.jpg?v=1781793707"},{"product_id":"reserved-11","title":"RESERVED","description":"\u003cp\u003eLavishly coloured, handsomely bound copy of this masterpiece of Renaissance numismatics. This copy features an additional etched, hand-coloured frontispiece with the same armorial design as the gilt centrepieces on the covers. The escutcheon‚Äî‚Äòd‚Äôargent √† la fasce de gules, acc. en chef d‚Äôun lion naissant de sable, mouvant de la fasce‚Äô (Rietstap, ‚ÄòArmorial général‚Äô, 329)‚Äîis probably that of the Norroy family in Berry. (According to Rietstap, the double-queued tail can be a variation on the single-queued, without indicating any specific heraldic differences.) At the time, the bearer of the arms was Jean de Norroy (d. after 1570), seigneur de Lestang and chevalier de l‚ÄôOrdre de Saint-Michel (‚ÄòArchives généalogiques‚Äô, 58). His seat was the Castle of Orbigny in the Val de Loire; nothing else is known about him except a few mentions in notarial documents. The bordure in gules and ermine may indicate a younger branch of the family or a reference to the maternal line. The crest and the cornerpieces feature thunderbolts modelled after the iconography of ancient Roman deities; the person who designed the binding was well-acquainted with classical antiquity.\u003c\/p\u003e \n\n\u003cp\u003eHubertus Goltzius (1526-83) was a Flemish painter and engraver trained in classical art by his father, a German artist. He worked for 12 years on this compendium of Roman imperial coins and medals, from Julius Caesar to the Holy Roman Emperors Charles V and Ferdinand, which he had seen in the collection of Antwerp humanists including the geographer Cornelius Grapheus and the antiquarian Marc Laurin, Duke of Watervliet. The first edition was published in Spanish in 1550; Italian, German and Latin translations followed in 1557, urged by the great success of the work. This is the second Italian edition, which bears a slightly different title. Goltzius‚Äôs work displayed the first combined use of copperplate and woodblocks engraved following the chiaroscuro technique‚Äîits first appearance in a book. The woodcutter, Josse Gietleughen of Courtrai, prepared two blocks for each etched image: ‚Äòa darker tone provide[d] the background for the effigy, a lighter tone the flesh-tone and the background for the inscription, and the white of the paper the highlights‚Äô (‚ÄòPrinting Colour 1400-1700‚Äô, 154). In this copy changes in degrees of ochre, brown and green between plates well illustrate the ongoing experimentation with chiaroscuro printing. Each medallion is surmounted by a motto summarising the virtues and vices of the individual emperor and preceded by a short account of his deeds. The annotator, who wrote in French and Italian, was interested in the dates of the emperors‚Äô accessions, which he noted on the margins, and on religious references (e.g., the appearance of the ‚ÄòAntichristo‚Äô Mahomet among the Saracens under Heraclius and that the Kings of England ‚Äòare now all heretics and excommunicated‚Äô).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RESERVED","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859661070671,"sku":"L3027","price":6500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3027-2.jpg?v=1781793701"},{"product_id":"maffei-raffaello","title":"MAFFEI, Raffaello.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An excellent, attractively bound copy of this handsomely produced edition of one of the earliest Renaissance encyclopaedias, with a mention of Columbus s discoveries. Raffaello Maffei (1451-1522), from Volterra, was a theologian and humanist; he was acquainted with Pico della Mirandola, Poliziano and Lorenzo de  Medici, and studied Greek under George of Trebizond. First published in 1506,  Commentaria  is his  magnum opus  - an encyclopaedia encompassing the entire knowledge of his time, from theology to biology. Part I, on geography, begins with a few sections on the heavenly spheres, the use of the gnomon to calculate latitude, with data on specific places worldwide, and the inhabited world at different latitudes. The remainder is a historical and geographical survey, based on ancient, medieval and contemporary sources, of the main regions and states in the world, from Spain, France, Poland and  Britannia  (with an account of the ancient kings of Britain from Brutus to Uther Pendragon, and mention of Merlin, the Saxon kings, the Conquest, the Angevins, Thomas ‚àö‚Ć Beckett and the War of the Roses, down to Henry VII), the Middle East, India, northern Africa, and places recently discovered ( loca nuper inventa ) under the patronage of the King of Spain. This last section includes a mention of Columbus s discovery in 1496 [sic]. Part II, on anthropology, is a gallery of  vires illustri , in alphabetical order, from the rulers, poets and philosophers of the ancient world, to the Fathers of the Church, medieval theologians (e.g., William of Ockham), heresies (e.g., Albigenses), popes, religious orders, and dozens of major humanists of his time, e.g., Aretinus, Chrysoloras, Filelfo, Bessarion, Gaza, Ficinus and Picus, as well as painters (e.g., Mantegna, Leonardo, Donatello, Bellini). Part III, on Philology, begins with sections on body parts, including medical conditions (e.g., ulcers, abscesses, fevers), proceeding to kinds of mammals, fish and insects, local, exotic and mythical; colour pigments, gemstones, metals; architecture and related machinery; leather; character traits; laws; language (orthography, diction, accents); and astronomy. The last few pp. Include Maffei s translation of Xenophon s  Oeconomicus , the most famous and ancient manual of husbandry and household management.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This is one of four issues published in 1526, all by Ascensius.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MAFFEI, Raffaello.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859665854799,"sku":"L3727","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3727-2.jpg?v=1781793693"},{"product_id":"vergilius-polydorus","title":"VERGILIUS, Polydorus.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A very early owner of this copy, Theodorus de Baer, purchased this volume in Cologne in 1555, and remarkably had an ex-libris produced from movable italic type, looking uncannily similar to that employed by the printer Isingrinus. This is the earliest example of a printed ex-libris we have seen. .  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .A very good, attractively bound copy of this scarce edition of one of the most popular humanist works of the early C16. .Polydore Vergil (1470-1555) was an Italian scholar, historian and diplomat who spent many years in England where he is famous for his  Anglica Historia  (1513; 1534). First published in 1499,  De rerum inventoribus  was a Europe-wide success, both as an encyclopaedia and intriguing schoolbook. It is a history of inventions, which identifies  inventors  as  founders of the arts and other traditions in the distant past  and blends, within Renaissance  inventio , the modern concepts of  invention  (a creation produced anew) and  discovery  (finding of something that was already there and making it known) (Atkinson, pp.2, 15). Part I provides an all-encompassing compendium of the origin of the world, the gods, the birth of humankind, the origin of languages, marriage and religion, gradually moving to  inventors , from antiquity to Vergil s times, of disciplines (e.g., grammar, rhetoric, music, astrology, medicine, magic, necromancy, chiromancy, metallurgy, painting, horticulture, architecture, navigation), genres (e.g., tragedy, comedy), the city, law, the calendar, units for telling the time, and so on. Most interesting is the section on the invention of books, the first library and the  discovery  of printing by Joannes Gutenberg, the first in Germany to find a way to print letters and to use a suitable new type of ink, in 1458. Nicolaus Jenson is mentioned as one of the earliest printers in Italy. The following section discusses the invention of letters, parchment and paper, mentioning Tirus, Cicero s servant, who invented the Tironian notes, the first Latin shorthand system. Parts IV-VIII focus mainly on religion. They discuss the founding of Christianity and the sacraments, ancient Christian offices, the festive celebration of relics, the origins and later ban of marriage for priests (in which the early annotator was interested), the origins of religious sacrifices, the foundation of monastic orders, concilia and the sect of the Simoniaci. An early learned encyclopaedia.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"VERGILIUS, Polydorus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859665985871,"sku":"L3659","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3659-3.jpg?v=1781793691"},{"product_id":"more-thomas-2","title":"MORE, Thomas.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Very interesting works of Thomas More, with one of the two 1565  first  editions of his Latin  opera omnia , and the rare 1529 first English edition of his  Dialogue . Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was a statesman under Henry VIII, one of the most influential English Renaissance humanists, especially through works such as  Utopia  (1516), and a saint and martyr of the Catholic Church. First printed here by John Rastell, and requested by the Bishop of London, More s  Dyaloge  is devoted to the most controversial questions pertaining to the Catholic faith, in the making of the English Reformation: the veneration and worship of images and relics, prayers to the saints, and the rationale of going on pilgrimage. It is in the form of a humanist dialogue between More, on the side of the Catholic Church, and a messenger, who reports how image veneration, the worship of saints, and pilgrimage have been abused. Most interesting are the sections where More upholds, unexpectedly, the importance of the English translation of the Bible, praising the aptness of the English vernacular for the sacred text, and pondering on how the common people should read and interpret passages on their own. In 1530, William Tyndale wrote  An Answer  to More s  Dyaloge  rebutting his theories and defending himself from his direct attacks. The first title is one of the two printings, which appeared in Louvain in 1565, of More s complete Latin works. Since the two printers worked in tandem, and the text is identical, they are considered two variants of the first collected edition. The first work is, notably, More s ground-breaking political satire,  Utopia  (1516), a travelogue reporting on the customs, inhabitants, religion and society of the fictional island, in a not-too-veiled comparison to Henrician England. In this copy, three of the  Epigrammata  - witty, moralistic short poems on a variety of subjects - were censored by an early reader, all three criticising James V of Scotland, and the second the Battle of Flodden in particular. Other works include his celebrated translation of Lucian, an answer to Luther written on behalf of Henry VIII, and a treatise on Christ s Passion. Two important first editions. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..It seems from the inscription that the curmudgeonly bookseller was alive and well in the early 1600 s..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORE, Thomas.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868679446863,"sku":"L4096","price":97500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4330-copy.jpg?v=1781793644"},{"product_id":"durer-albrecht-2","title":"DÜRER, Albrecht.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.Good copy in contemporary binding of the first complete edition of Albrecht D√ºrer s collected works in German - handsomely illustrated with c.400 woodcuts produced using D√ºrer s original blocks from the 1525-28 eds.  In the illustration of principles [of Renaissance art] lies the great historical importance of D√ºrer s theoretical writings  . They were the foundation of accepted aesthetic dogma until the C19  (PMM 53, 1525 ed. of  Underweysung der Messung ). D√ºrer (1471-1528) was a German painter, printmaker and draughtsman. After travelling in Germany and Italy, he returned to his native Nuremberg, and had Maximilian I as his patron from 1512. His fame spread throughout Europe thanks to his book illustrations, prints and cartographic works. He also wrote several theoretical works in German.  D√ºrer, like Luther, had to create a German language of his own. Like Luther, he took a more or less standardized chancery style as a basis and infused life into it, not by a futile attempt at humanistic oratory but, on the contrary, by listening to the man in the street  . In the end [he] not only managed to describe complicated geometrical constructions more briefly, more clearly and more exhaustively than any professional mathematician of his time, but also expressed historical facts and philosophical ideas in a prose style no less \"classic\" than Luther s translation of the Bible  (Panofsky, p.245). . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..At the core of D√ºrer s theoretical works lies the Renaissance art principle that the representation of an object should be faithful and proportionate to its appearance in reality. The first work -  Underweysung der Messung  (first ed., 1525) - is a treatise on measurement, and perspective using the compass and ruler.  It is the first literary document in which a strictly representational problem received a strictly scientific treatment at the hands of a Northerner  (Panofsky, p.253). It is a manual for draughtsmen on the drawing of linear geometry and polygons, with famous sections on the geometric rendition of the Latin, after the Italian model (and anticipating G. Tory), and Gothic alphabets, the latter following a new modular system whereby letters are divided into small equal squares.  If of anything, this cumulative method is reminiscent of Arabic, and not of Italian, calligraphy  (Panofsky, p.258). Another section is devoted to architecture, and woodcut n.34 shows gores and sections of globe maps. A couple of final woodcuts illustrate how to calculate where the shade of an object will be in relation to the sun, as well as two scenes of artists at work using a lens attached to the easel and a weighed lead wire to render the perspective. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n.. ..The second -  Vier B√ºcher von Menschlicher Proportion  (first ed., 1528) - is entirely devoted to the drawing of human figures according to their natural proportions. The charming woodcuts provide specific measurements for full-page human figures   male, female, older, younger, thinner, larger   from the front, side and back, and in various positions, with a woodcut specifically devoted to the proportions between the fingers and several woodcuts of the head (even as seen from above). D√ºrer also offers observations on ideal beauty and aesthetics, just after the third part, and  it is in this \"aesthetic excursus,\" as it is commonly referred to, that we find the final statement of what may be called Durer's philosophy of art  (Panofsky, p.273). The third and last treatise is devoted to the building of castles and fortifications (first ed., 1527), with numerous double-page, folding woodcut plates of plans and elevations.  Strictly speaking the first treatise dealing exclusively with this subject  (Kruft, p.110). In addition to providing advice on strengthening existing fortifications, D√ºrer also  outlines a utopian city , seen as a  fortified citadel , built   as in a  job-creation scheme  - by unemployed poor people, so as to stop them begging, as had happened with the Egyptian pyramids (Kruft, p.110-11).. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..This fascinating copy was in the library of the Counts of Waldburg, possibly Maximilian Willibald of Waldburg-Wolfegg (1604 67), military commander and the governor of Upper Palatinate. He was polyglot, a keen owner of medical, scientifical and alchemical books, as well as, from 1650, of books on graphics, thousands of which he acquired from the Fugger family s collections. From 1938, it was in the library of the Herman G√∂ring School for Artists (Meisterschule f√ºr Malerei) in Kronenburg, inaugurated and patronised by G√∂ring as a place to establish the artistic style and pictorial propaganda of the regime, and to train its future exponents. Unsurprisingly, it was closed down in 1945. Its library included a few fine medieval mss. The school s logo reproduced G√∂ring s own device..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DÜRER, Albrecht.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868694159695,"sku":"L4365a","price":10750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/2B8BEA33-B15E-4937-A524-BDE934B42718.webp?v=1781793463"},{"product_id":"fulgentius-fabius-planciades","title":"FULGENTIUS, Fabius Planciades.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this fundamental work on ancient Greek myths, comprising Fulgentius‚Äô fables and a critical commentary by the humanist G.B. Pio. A privilege granted by Ludovicus Maria Sforza is printed on the title verso, giving publishing rights for this and other editions to Johannes Passiranus de Asula, a wealthy scholar who paid for the publication of several ancient works based on mss he owned and which he wanted to circulate for the use of scholars and students. Fulgentius (5th-6th cent.) was a Latin writer probably born and educated in North Africa, historically confused with a contemporary bishop, St Fulgentius. ‚ÄòEnarrationes‚Äô includes Fulgentius‚Äô interpretation of 50 fables, surrounded by Pio‚Äôs commentary. The protagonists of the fables include Greek and Roman deities, mythological figures (e.g., Tantalus, Acteo, Adonis, Prometheus), literary chatacters (e.g., Thyresias, Ulysses), and talking animals (e.g., the crow). Fulgentius provides a short summary for each, followed by an allegorical intrerpetation, often supported by etymological deductions: e.g., the sirens Ulysses encounters represent pleasure and lasciviousness, but the wise man avoids them. Pio‚Äôs commentary added references to Christian exegesis of ancient mythology, including St Augustine. An interesting appendix is Fulgentius‚Äô ‚ÄòExpositio sermonum antiquorum‚Äô, a concise vocabulary of obsolete or obscure Latin words. ‚ÄòPio pushed the Latin language beyond the linguistic boundaries of Ciceronian golden age and instead delighted in the archaic, the archaizing, and the rare‚Äô, thus producing a ‚Äòcutting-edge‚Äô edition (Hartmann, p.21). A thorough early C16 annotator, probably an advanced student with some knowledge of Greek, glossed numerous fables, but most of all he delighted, like Pio, in Fulgentius‚Äô final list of Latin words. His glosses summarised the general meaning of the fables or clarified words or nouns (e.g., Apollos as Sun, Venus as Luxuria), correcting occasional typos.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"FULGENTIUS, Fabius Planciades.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868709822799,"sku":"L4548","price":8750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/fulgentius-L4548-3.jpg?v=1781793412"},{"product_id":"maino-giasone-del","title":"MAINO, Giasone del.","description":"\u003cp\u003eVery rare first Giunta edition of this work on legal actions in Roman civil law by the humanist jurist Giasone del Maino (1435-1519), first published 1483. It is a commentary on Book IV of the Institutiones, the student text-book of the Byzantine system of civil law promulgated by Justinian I. Del Maino states that all litigation occurs through legal actions, which enforce rights or obligations, the latter concerning contracts, and are always brought in relation to a property or an individual (in rem vs personam). Much of the work concerns contract law, including promises, usury, exceptions, etc. Del Maino describes the action that should be taken by judges in various cases. One of the crucial questions is whether legal causes can be inherited through marriage and descent etc., del Maino covering primogeniture, for example, as well as the rights of servants to bring actions against their masters, the rights of kings to alienate land, etc., obligations and rights of knights, etc. Del Maino also deals with actions responding to harmful acts (de maleficiis), including restitution. \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\nThis copy has intriguing and splendid contemporary noble Austrian provenance, being from the library of the R√∂mer family of Maretsch in South Tyrol, held by tradition to be Roman emigrants, hence the name. The four sons of Christoph (d.1544) were Catholic courtiers, religious knights and magistrates who rebuilt the family castle at Maretsch in Renaissance style:  Kaspar Melchior (d. 1574) attended the Habsburg court of Graz. Christoph Sigmund (d.1571) was commander of the Knights Hospitaller in Mailberg, Lower Austria, and died as captain of Trieste. Lukas (d.1582) joined the Teutonic Knights in the early 1540s, became commander at Sterzing in 1552, and finally Tirolean commander in 1560. The most colourful of the siblings, Lukas resigned from the order in 1573, married his concubine, and petitioned the archduke for the legitimization of their five children. The archduke gave his fiat; but ecclesiastical dispensation, after initial approval, was withdrawn, as Lukas had allegedly bribed a Brixen cathedral canon. Lukas s death provoked a lengthy legal battle over his inheritance, which was finally divided between the family and the order. Last Hans Jakob (1518-71) served the count as a local office holder and councillor, collected antiquities, and translated the Tirolean ordinance (Landesordnung) into Italian  (M.A. Chisholm.  The Tirolean Aristocracy in 1567  in Austrian History Yearbook, 40 (2009), p. 26). A cousin of the siblings, Johann Jacob, also confirmed as a baron, may be the Johann Jakob whose autograph can be found twice in this book. Chisholm states that he  displayed ancient Roman sculpture and artefacts  (p. 22).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MAINO, Giasone del.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868722700623,"sku":"L4820","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage-5.png?v=1781793339"},{"product_id":"goltzius-hubert-1","title":"GOLTZIUS, Hubert.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first edition in German of the painter Hubert Goltzius s lives of the ancient and modern Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Charles V and Ferdinand II, beautifully illustrated with over one hundred chiaroscuro woodcuts derived from portraits on coins, published in the same year as editions in Latin and Italian. Chiaroscuro printing involves one or more coloured woodblocks, relief being achieved through the use of the natural white of the paper to provide highlights. Goltzius was  the first artist from any country to adapt the chiaroscuro print successfully to the requirement of full-scale book illustration (Bialler, p. 30). This was his earliest published work of numismatics, and was,  in its size and scale ‚Äö without precedent in the field of numismatics  (ibid., p. 31).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGoltzius's catalogue inhabits a common trope employed by countless humanists and antiquarians of the period: adjoining the Habsburg dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors to an historical account of the ancient Roman emperors. Goltzius, however, added the element of basing portraits of the emperors on their portrayals on coins, his putative numismatic evidence (which cannot have always been strictly accurate) lending credence to the idea of a continuous Roman imperatorial lineage. Initially the series was to include 148 medallions, but a number remained uncompleted for the first three editions. In the Latin edition, presumably the earliest, Goltzius employed an etched line block to provide the outlines, and one or two tone blocks depending on the colouring. In this edition, however, a number of the medallions are printed using a woodcut line block and only one tone block, which removed the need for printing on two presses (one for the etched block and another for the woodblocks), and reduced the number of runs through the press. Van Mander stated that the etched line blocks were made by Goltzius himself, and the woodblocks by Joos Gietleughen (Bialler).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis was an impeccably well-researched book, as demonstrated by the long catalogue of authors cited, in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and German. Goltzius begins with an historical catalogue of the triumphs won by consuls and triumvirs of ancient Rome, from the foundation of the city by Romulus to the death of Augustus. This is followed by a quote from Ammianus Marcellinus, the ancient Roman soldier in the army of Julian the Apostate. Each coin portrait is then accompanied by a brief life of the emperor in question, compiled from these sources. There is also a genealogy of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. The final portrait of Ferdinand II differs from that in the Latin edition, showing him only as a bust, as opposed to a half-portrait holding sceptre.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GOLTZIUS, Hubert.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723880271,"sku":"L4888","price":5750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"bude-guillaume-with-priscian","title":"BUDÉ, Guillaume. (With) PRISCIAN.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare edition of Budé’s De asse et partibus eius, on Roman weights, measures and coinage, extremely popular and one of the most influential works of sixteenth-century humanism, bound with the rare first Badius Ascensius edition of the works of Priscian, which contains his treatise on Roman weights and measures. The Budé is the ‘definitive’ authorised edition, being the last to contain changes made during Budé’s lifetime.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBudé’s work on Roman weights and measures was more than just an antiquarian treatise; it was a sweeping reconstruction of ancient Roman culture, based on Budé’s expert knowledge of Latin and Greek as well as Roman law, that inspired generations of humanists. It became the standard textbook for those interested in Roman coinage. As stated in the colophon, this is the last edition on which Budé himself had any influence, augmented and enlarged with corrections made by him prior to his death in 1540. A first issue was printed 1 November 1541, with this, the second issue, in January 1542, according to the colophons. At the end are reprinted Josse Bade’s notes from the prior edition, published by him in 1532, which also carried a colophon declaring its authorisation by Budé.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePriscian was the most significant Latin grammarian to survive from antiquity. His most important work is this famous Latin grammar, the 18 books of the Institutionis Grammatices. This is followed by a number of shorter works, one on Roman weights and measures, along with: the elements of rhetoric, De constructione et ordinatione partium orationis; on Latin accents; his commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid; his translation of Hermogenes of Tarsus on rhetoric; his commentary on comic verses; works on the metre of Terence, metre used in rhetoric, and his commentary on Rufinus; and on the declination of nouns and pronouns, conjugations, and participles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eI: ‘… beaucoup corrigée et augmentée … un beau volume’ (Renouard).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BUDÉ, Guillaume. (With) PRISCIAN.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868724142415,"sku":"L4806","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"isabella-sforza","title":"RESERVED","description":"\u003cp\u003eAn extraordinarily rare survival, an anonymous, unknown English translation of an Italian humanist treatise by a prominent Renaissance woman, Isabella Sforza (1503-c.61), first published as Della vera tranquillita dell'animo by Aldus in 1544. The work was published in Spanish and French translations during the STC period, but never in English. The Italian original is still in print.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e The manuscript dates to the latter half of the sixteenth century, most likely towards its end. This period was characterised by translations of Italian works of travel and voyages, commensurate with the burgeoning interest in New World exploration and colonisation, along with a renewed interest in 'courtly' humanism and works on literary style. Especially in the case of the latter genre, the purpose of translation was always, in part at least, the refinement of the English language and its orthography, intended for an increasingly varied audience, as works of Italian humanism became more readily available. This was not apparently true, however, of Sforza's work, as our translator was working either from a copy of Aldus's imperfect printed text, or a ms. which was their common ancestor. The translator was missing the last few lines of Chapter 11 and the header for Chapter 12, instead inserting an elaborate note, which, like the preface (see below), gives us some idea of the translator's own voice: 'Here, I am inforced to make an abrupt connexion of that which followeth because there wanteth two leaves in the Originall; as though the starrs did envye the good of mankinde, as knowing the conclusion of this booke, to be altogether heavenlye, and therefore fitter for their contemplation, than for the unworthye viewe of earthlye minded mortalitye' (etc.). The missing portion is matched by N3-4 of the Aldine 1544 edition. Our translator remains anonymous but was evidently from the nobility, addressing this fair copy to their 'dear mother' and 'Ladye', explicitly emphasising the gender and the nobility of the Italian author: 'a worthy monument, both of a woman and a Ladye, and therefore the fitter to be consecrated unto you, who muste needs like it well as being a woman, better as being a Ladye, best of all as being a mother' (etc.). There follows a lengthy diatribe against the misogynistic views held by some men. Possibly this manuscript was also intended for circulation within a wider circle, if not for publication. 'During the Renaissance as a whole ... English interest in the Italian humanists was a non-academic one, the translators originating from varied social classes and walks of life, for numbered among them were aristocrats, merchants, teachers and churchmen' (Olga Zorzi Pugliese, 'English Translations from the Italian Humanists: An Interpretive Survey and Bibliography' in Italica, 50.3 (1973), p. 415).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe preface of 5 pp. is the translator's own. It contains some charming imagery and turns of phrase, comparing some men to 'candle-flyes pursuing their owne mischiefe', others to 'the Chamelion ... still gaping after the ambitous blasts of fleeting preferrments [and] worldly pelfe', i.e. wealth. The translator also uses a medical metaphor, reflecting some of the content of Sforza's work, which, 'muche like to that hearbe Panace[a], among the Phisitions, doth affoord severall medicines, to cure all the diseases of the minde ...' There are twelve chapters in the original text and eleven here (see above), as follows: 'Of the excellencye and dignitye of man'; 'Of the principal passions which trouble us'; 'That povertye is to be preferred before wealth: and that the desire of children is most vayne'; 'Of the suffering of injuryes: and the refraining from anger'; 'Howe we ought still to remember, and yet still despise, deathe'; 'Howe we ought to tame gluttonye and wantonnes'; 'That we must lay aside pride and envye'; 'That no ague or cholicke, or goute, or want of sleepe, or leprosye, is able to hinder the tranquillitye of the minde'; 'That neither blindnes, nor deafnes, can any wise hinder our foresayd tranquillitye'; 'That neither dombe, nor stammerers, nor those that are full of sores ... are thereby hindered from the obtaining of tranquillitye'; 'That sinne is that which above all other things robbs us of our tranquillitye.' The final, twelfth chapter - shortened here due to missing text in the original - is on how the 'knowledge of Jesus Christ atones for our sins and brings us peace', with an emphasis on reading the scriptures. This is the most explicitly religious portion of Sforza's text, shown to have been strongly influenced by the Beneficio di Cristo, one of the most popular and influential works of Italian 'Evangelism', published 1543, which desired reform of the Catholic Church through individual spirituality, study of scripture and even the problematic doctrine (from a Catholic perspective) of justification by faith (Erdmann). Sforza's message would have made her treatise appealing to a Protestant English audience, though this chapter also begins by lamenting the schisms and 'heresies' affecting the Catholic Church, almost certainly referring to the Reformed churches. It is just possible, therefore, that the translator's omission of the first part of this chapter indicated their use of a printed copy that had at some point been deliberately defaced. A fascinating and extremely rare example of humanist Elizabethan translation of an Italian text into English, and one that deserves further research. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIsabella Sforza was the illegitimate daughter of Giovanni Sforza, 3rd Lord of Pesaro (d.1510), of the famous ruling family of Milan, and formerly husband of Lucrezia Borgia. Their disastrous marriage ended with Giovanni's lurid claims of Lucrezia's incest with her notorious brother Cesare. Pope Alexander VI, father of Cesare and Lucrezia, excommunicated Giovanni in 1500; beset by attacks from the Borgias and his own citizens, Giovanni lost hold of Pesaro, a port on the Adriatic Sea, regaining control only briefly before his death, when Isabella was still a young child. Noted in her lifetime for her learning, very little is known about her, and accounts differ regarding her education. She was frequently in financial trouble (as she makes clear several times in this work) and appears to have lived an itinerant life, though she certainly lived in Piacenza, since this is where the editor of this treatise, Ortensio Lando, found her. Her first husband, a Florentine merchant, Cipriano Sernigi, was murdered in 1532 during an argument; her second, Francesco Carminati di Brembilla, was the godson of Isabella's own godmother Cecilia Gallerani - known as the model for Leonardo da Vinci's painting 'Lady with an Ermine' - though this marriage was annulled on account of the couple's 'spiritual kinship'. Isabella died in Rome without issue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"[ISABELLA SFORZA.]","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57960796258639,"sku":"L4486","price":95000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-13_at_6.27.34_PM.png?v=1781371672","url":"https:\/\/sokol-books-ltd.myshopify.com\/collections\/humanism.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}