VIRTUTUM ENCOMIA
First edition of this pocket collection of quotations from classical philosophers, political leaders, poets, and playwrights.
Near fine.
Price: $1,800.00
VIRTUTUM ENCOMIA
This printed commonplace book was edited, compiled, and (in some cases) translated by Henri Estienne (1531-1598), the famed French printer and classicist. Published the year after his monumental THESAURUS GRAECAE LINGUAE, it is itself a work of immense classical scholarship.
Commonplace books, both manuscript and printed, were a highly valued format by humanists (such as, famously, Erasmus) for making connections, ethical or rhetorical, across works. Estienne has grouped the quotations here into thematic topics, such as prudence, justice, and temperance. Among the authors quoted are ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles and Euripides, philosophers Plato and Epictetus, and orators Demosthenes and Isocrates; Latin authors include Horace, Ovid, and Juvenile. (Quotations are in Latin or Greek as appropriate, though with Latin translations after all Greek quotes.) Estienne also quotes extensively from individual works, such as Lucretius's DE RERUM NATURA, Seneca's MORAL EPISTLES, and Cicero's PARADOXA STOICORUM.
Estienne compiled this book of wisdom across philosophical disciplines: great sayings from Pythagoreanism, Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Cynicism all make appearances. In its eclectic selections it is perhaps the most revealing, the work of a humanist scholar synthesizing a thousand years of classical thought into a pocket compendium of Renaissance wisdom.
Read more: Renouard, Annales de l'imprimerie des Estienne, 139.10; Raybould, Introduction to the Symbolic Literature of the Renaissance; Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe 1501-1600, 1795.
The Object
[Geneva]: Henr. Stephanus [Henri Estienne], 1573. Full title: Virtutum Encomia: sive, gnomae de virtutibus: ex poetis & philosophis utriusque linguae. 16mo in eights, 4.5'' x 2.75''. 18th century full mottled calf, raised bands, elaborately gilt-stamped spines, tan goatskin spine label. Marbled endpapers, all edges stained red, green silk ribbon marker. With all blanks. Woodcut printer's device, initials, and headpieces. [32], 255, [1] pages. A few small pencil annotations to margins. Tiny bit of cracking to joints (still firm). Light soil to first leaf. Overall beautifully preserved.
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