PETRARCA, Francesco [1304-1374].

Opera Latina. Edited by Sebastian Brant.

      [Colophon on fo. 367a:] Basel: Johann Amerbach, 1496. - folio. 275 x 191 mm. [ff. 388 (of 389)]. lacking the final blank. divisional titles. roman type. 49-55 lines. initial spaces with guide letters. rubricated: initials supplied in blue & red. later calf (c1700), rebacked preserving endleaves (covers rubbed, title bit soiled, with ms. notes in lower margin & repair to outer margin, some small round inconsequential wormholes, small amateurish drawing on verso of one leaf; a nice copy with good margins). First Collected Edition of the Latin poetry and prose works of Petrarca, edited by Sebastian Brant. This was the only collected edition published in the fifteenth century. Included here are: Bucolicum carmen; De vita solitaria (a panegyric of solitude); De remediis utriusque fortunae (a treatise on human happiness and unhappiness); Secretum; De vera sapientia (actually by Nicolaus de Cusa; see E.P.Goldschmidt, Medieval texts, p. 133); De rebus memorandis; Quattuor libri invectivarum contra quendam medicum (relating to Petrarca’s quarrels with the physicians of Avignon); Epistolae familiares; Epistolae sine titulo; Ad Charolum quartum Romanorum regem epistola; De studiorum suorum successibus ad posteritatem epistola; Septem psalmi poenitentiales; Epitoma illustrium virorum (an epitome of the biographies of Roman worthies); Epitomatis post obitum Petrarchae Lorbardi di Siricho supplementum; Benevenuti de Rombaldis libellus qui Augustalis dicitur; Principalium sententiarum ex libris Petrarchae collectarum summaria annotatio. The most important of the Latin works in the volume is the collection of Epistles. "These are not only of high interest from the portrait they convey of the man himself, equally as an individual and as the ideal type of man of letters, but [they] form a perpetual commentary on the manners and customs of his age. Some are of unique interest, such as the description of his ascent of Mont Ventoux, of the great tempest at Naples, and of the apparition of the ghost of the Bishop of Lombes, the first circumstantial narrative of its kind, and perhaps to this day the best authenticated."" (Bernard Quaritch Incunable Cat., 1927) "When we attempt to estimate Petrarch’s position in the history of modern culture, the first thing which strikes us is that he was even less eminent as an Italian poet than as the founder of Humanism, the inaugurator of the Renaissance in Italy. What he achieved for the modern world was not merely to bequeath to his Italian imitators masterpieces of lyrical art unrivalled for perfection of workmanship, but also and far more, to open out for Europe a new sphere of mental activity. Standing within the threshold of the middle ages, he surveyed the kingdom of the modern spirit, and, by his own inexhaustible industry in the field of scholarship and study, he determined what we call the revival of learning.". (Encyc. Britan., 11th Edn.) BMC III 757. Brunet IV 565. Fowler, Catalogue of the Petrarch Collection bequeathed by Willard Fiske (Cornell University Library), pp. 1-2. Goff P-365. Hain-Copinger 12749. IGI 7564. Oates 2791. Polain (B) 3059. Proctor 7608. [Attributes: First Edition]