[ESTIENNE, Robert]

Dictionarium, seu Latinae linguae thesaurus. Editio Secunda

      Robert Estienne Paris: Robert Estienne, 1543. The 'Definitive' edition. Three folio volumes (14 7/8 x 10 inches; 378 x 255 mm.). Text in double columns, large decorative white on black woodcut initials, Estienne's large "Noli Altum Sapere" device on title.#11;#11;Contemporary full vellum, with old but expert joint repair, original brown morocco gilt lettering labels. Very old paper shelf labels (small) on two of the volumes. With nineteenth-century stamp (Maison de Lucon-Congregation du Jesus et Marie) on front blanks and upper margin of title page. Scattered and minor foxing. A very clean and attractive copy#11;#11;This is the third and most complete edition of Estienne's monumental Thesaurus and is considered definitive. Although noted as "editio secunda" on the title page as Estienne probably did not consider the first edition of 1532 complete enough to be worth mentioning. The Thesaurus can be considered as one of the great achievements of the late renaissance as it opened up and made accessible a world of scholarship hitherto reserved for a very small elite. "The series of dictionaries edited and published by the Estienne or Stephanus family is perhaps the most significant, though by no means the sole achievement of the most renowned family of scholar printers in history. Robert I....was the greatest of them all...above all, as the first scientific lexicographer of both ancient and modern languages...The Thesaurus grew out of the demand for a reissue of the then standard Latin dictionary, the Dictionarium Calepinus. Estienne considered the book too bad to merit a reprint; his appeal to a number of scholars to revise it was refused because of the tremendous labour involved-so, in the end, he undertook the work himself. His main innovations were threefold; contrary to the practice of his predecessors, he based his vocabulary exclusively on classical authors of whom he distilled some thirty; he clarified the meaning of the words by citing reputable authorities, including his friend Bude; and he illustrated the correct usage of words and phrases by ample quotations from classical authors. The second eedition (1536) was enlarged by the addition of proper names; the definitive edition [presented here], in three volumes, came out in 1543... (his) work is still unsurpassed as a whole." (PMM).#11;#11;Printing and the Mind of Man, 62., Adams S 1820; Brunet II, 1070; Graesse II, 506; Renourard p. 55: 7;