SANCIUS, RODERICUS.

SPECULUM VITAE HUMANAE. ROME, JOANNES PHILIPPUS DE LIGNAMINE, 31 JULY 1473.

      Small folio. Old vellum. (163) lvs. Rome incunable of a very popular educational book by Rodericus Sancius, Latin for Rodriguez Sanchez de Arevalo, bishop of Zamora (1404-1470). Rodriguez studied law at the University of Salamanca and then became a priest. The Spanish King sent him as ambassador to the Emperor Fredrik III, later to Rome were he was persuaded to stay and was used for papal missions. He became a firm defender of papal authority. He first published the present "Mirror of Human Life" at Rome in 1468. Discussing the pros and contras of various human trades and professions, the work became quite popular and was published about a dozen times in the fifteenth century alone. It remained popular in the sixteenth century as well and was republished as late as 1683, at Frankfurt in Germany. Good large-paper copy, with the engraved armorial bookplate of Manuel Gonzalez Salmon.- (First blank lacking; contemp. ms. ink mark and short notes in the margins troughout; few stains). Goff R 220; Proctor 3391; Klebs 857.9; IGI 8397; BMC IV, p. 31; Hain-Copinger 13943; Oates 1380.