Linacre Thomas; [Estienne, Printer]

THOMAE LINACRI BRITANNI DE EMENDATA STRUCTURA LATINI SERMONIS LIBRI SEX [with,] INDEX IN SEX THOMAE LINACRI ANGLI DE EMENDATA STRUCTURA LIBROS, SIVE DE OCTO PARTIUM ORATIONIS CONSTRUCTIONE. [ON THE PURE AND CORRECT STRUCTURE OF LATIN PROSE]

      Paris Roberti Stephani [Estienne] 1527 and 1529 - 2 volumes bound into one. Very Rare First Edition of each work. First Editions of the Estienne printings do not appear in the auction records for over 35 years and OCLC shows only 1 copy in libraries worldwide. With the Estienne engraved devices on the titles. Large 8vo, bound in full antique calf, most probably from the 1600Õs, blind ruled at the borders of the covers, and at the head and tail of the spine panel, lettering label with calligraphy by hand. 128 leaves; 21 leaves complete A well preserved copy with the text-block in good order, crisp and quite clean and unpressed. Some unobtrusive evidence here and there of old damp to some of the corners at the lower quadrant, last leaf of index with a bit of loss at the upper outside corner. Front board detached but easily mended. RARE FIRST EDITIONS OF EACH WORK. ÔThomas Linacre (or Lynaker) (c. 1460 Ð 20 December 1524) was an English humanist and physician, after whom Linacre College, Oxford is named. Linacre was more of a scholar than a scientific investigator. (and) was highly esteemed in his own day. He took no part in political or theological questions, but his career as a scholar was characteristic of the critical period in the history of learning through which he lived. He was one of the first Englishmen to study Greek in Italy, and brought back to his native country and his own university the lessons of the "New Learning." His teachers were some of the greatest scholars of the day. Among his pupils was oneÑErasmusÑwhose name alone would suffice to preserve the memory of his instructor in Greek, and others of note in letters and politics, such as Sir Thomas More, Prince Arthur and Queen Mary I of England. John Colet, William Grocyn, William Lilye and other eminent scholars were his intimate friends, and he was esteemed by a still wider circle of literary correspondents in all parts of Europe. He became the pupil of Angelo Poliziano, and shared the instruction which Poliziano imparted at Florence to the sons of Lorenzo de Medici. The younger of these princes became Pope Leo X, and later remembered his old companionship with Linacre. Among his other teachers and friends in Italy were Demetrius Chalcondylas, Hermolaus Barbarus, Aldus Romanus the printer of Venice, and Nicolaus Leonicenus of Vicenza. Linacre took the degree of doctor of medicine with great distinction at Padua. On his return to Oxford, full of the learning and imbued with the spirit of the Italian Renaissance, he formed one of the brilliant circle of Oxford scholars, including John Colet, William Grocyn and William Latimer, who are mentioned in the letters of Erasmus. He translated for the use of Prince Arthur an astronomical treatise of Proclus, De sphaera, which was printed at Venice by Aldus in 1499. The accuracy of these translations and their elegance of style were universally admitted. They have been generally accepted as the standard versions of those parts of Galen's writings, and frequently reprinted, either as a part of the collected works or separately. His Latin style was greatly admired by Erasmus, who also praised Linacre's critical judgment ("vir non exacti tantum sed sever judicii"). According to others it was hard to say whether he was more distinguished as a grammarian or a rhetorician. Of Greek he was regarded as a consummate master; and he was equally eminent as a "philosopher," that is, as learned in the works of the ancient philosophers and naturalists. In this there may have been some exaggeration; but all have acknowledged the elevation of Linacre's character, and the fine moral qualities summed up in the epitaph written by John Caius: "Fraudes dolosque mire perosus; idus a