Pythagorae (2 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Reprint. Publication date "M. D. XXCVI." Professionally rebound in brown boards with the spine stamped in black. Text block is browned and appears cut-down slightly from original size. Unmarked. Text is in Latin. A Very pretty copy. 134 p. plus 5 more printed pages and two blank leaves. 3 5/8 x 5 15/16 inches. I believe that this book was rebound in the early twentieth century. See Pictures.

8vo. 3 volumes in 1: Ad 1: 163,(4),(1 blank) p. Ad. 2: (95,(1 blank)) p. Ad 3: 333,(2),(1 blank) p. Vellum 17 cm (Ref: Ad 1: VD16 P 5452; Hoffmann 3,330 (not this year 1565); Schweiger 1,282 (also not this year). Graesse 5,516. Ad 2: VD 16 ZV 19766; Hoffmann 3,510; Schweiger 1,316. Ad 3: VD16 S 6278; Griechischer Geist aus Basler Presse 462, but see also 460 and 461; Hoffmann 3,396; Schweiger 1,287: 'Enth. Verbess. aus e. Mscr. des Marcus Antimachus zu Florenz. Andere Varr., welche nicht in den Text aufgenommen sind, stehen am Rande'. Brunet 5,370; Ebert 21169; Graesse 6/1,398) (Details: Three rare texts in an unattractive binding. Ad 1: Printer's mark on the title, depicting a furious swan within a laurel wreath. Ad 2: Woodcut round portrait of Melanchthon on the title. Ad 3: Greek text with opposing Latin translation; woodcut initials) (Condition: Vellum dyed red, soiled and very worn; endpapers gone. This was a convolute consisting of 4 volumes. One of them was once removed, leaving an open space exposing the 3 broad bands of an ancient manuscript to which the book has been sewn. First title soiled, and with an old manuscript note in the blank margin; its right edge of the first leaves thumbed. Occasional old ink underlinings and marginalia of the hands of 2 or 3 'adolescentes studiosi'. On the last page in old ink the first 10 lines of a poem of the Hungarian humanist Janus Pannonius, 1434-1472, known all over Europe, 'De paparum creandorum ritu immutato', in which he ridiculed the pope) (Note: Ad 1 & 2: The 'gnome' or 'sententia', the pithy expression of a general thought, is probably as old as human speech. In literature it is allready found in Homer, e.g. the much quoted proverb 'A multitude of masters is no good thing; let there be one master'. (Ilias, II,204) Early Greek poets, among whom Theognis and Phocylides, are supposed to have summarized the ethic doctrines in short 'gnomai', sayings which according to Aristotle are more credible than certain long argumentations. Famous Greek expressions of a striking thought everyone knows are 'gnôthi seauthon' and 'mêden agan'. The 'gnome' was used occasionally in poetry or prose, but as a literary form it can be traced back to the Greek poets Phocylides and Theognis. Phocylides of Milete wrote hexametric and elegiac 'gnômai'. According to Suda he lived ca. 540 B.C. The 200 or so hexameters of his 'Poema nouthêtikon, or 'poema admonitorium' were ascribed to Phocylides in the 16th century. It was first published under his name in 1495. In the 16th century this didactic ethical poem was a very popular schoolbook, as it had been on Byzantine schools for centuries. This edition was probably also meant for young students or schoolboys, it should be studied carefully by 'adolescentes studiosi'. A great number of editions, almost one every year, translations and commentaries were produced by schoolmasters in the 16th century. 'Die Richtung der Zeit ging recht ernstlich dahin, die Jugenderziehung auf eine Vereinigung biblischer Glaubens- und Sittenlehre mit klassischer Reinheit der Form zu gründen' (J. Bernays, Ueber das Phokylideische Gedicht', in 'Jahresbericht des jüdisch-theologischen Seminars', Breslau 1856, p. I) The 'poema admonitorium' then ascribed to Phocylides, was often combined with Theognis, whose work was already a schoolbook in antiquity. Was Theognis purely pagan, the reading of Phocylides was more in line with biblical ethics. The christian ethics found in the work of a noble pagan poet who lived in the 6th century before Christ proved the correctness of the bible, it was thought. The German classical philologist Friedrich Sylburg, 1536-1596, was the first to doubt the attribution of the 'poema admonitorium' to Phocylides. And in 1606 the French genius Joseph Scaliger proved on stylistic grounds, and with respect to the content that the real author was perhaps a Christian. After this the interest in the poem waned, and finally it sank into oblivion. Nowadays the aut.