Stobaeus, [Ioannis]

Eclogarum libri duo: Quorum prior Physicas, posterior Ethicas complectitur; nunc primum Gr!c! editi; Interprete Gulielmo Cantero. [and] G. Gemisthi Plethonis. De Rebus Peloponnes. Orationes Du!. Eodem Gulielmo Cantero interprete

      Antwerp: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, 1575 First edition of two important works, translated into Latin by Willem Canter (1542-1575), the able Dutch critic and philologist, from manuscripts in the library of the Hungarian humanist, Joannes Sambuchus. . Contemporary calf over oak boards, with covers elaborately tooled in blind, using several roll-tools. Ornately decorated brass clasps and bosses, without ties. Folio. Parallel texts, in Greek and Latin. Woodcut printer's device on title-page. Title hand-ruled in ink. Old ownership signature ("R. Snellius") on title-page. A beautiful, wide-margined copy in an interesting old binding. In cloth clamshell box. Stobaeus, who probably lived in the latter half of the 5th century A.D., was the compiler of a valuable series of extracts from Greek authors. The work, intended for his son Septimus, was divided into four books and two volumes. In most of our manuscripts the work is divided into three books, of which the first and second are generally called Physical and Moral Extracts, and the third Florilegium or Sermones. The text, though, is essentially homogeneous. It deals with a variety of topics from metaphysics to household economy. From the second book onwards, it is concerned chiefly with ethical questions. It cites more than five hundred authors, including poets, historians, philosophers, orators and physicians. It is important for us for the large number of quotations from earlier literature, which supplements our knowledge of classical authors and throws light upon difficulties in the regular manuscript tradition. We owe many of our most important fragments of Euripides' plays to Stobaeus. (See Encyclopedia Briannica, 11th edition; Oxford Classical Dictionary, second edition.) Gemisthus Pletho (c1355 ! 1452/1454) was a Byzantine scholar of Neoplatonic philosophy. He re-introduced Plato's thoughts to Western Europe during the 1438 - 1439 Council of Florence, a failed attempt to reconcile the East-West schism. Here Pletho met and influenced Cosimo de' Medici to found a new Platonic Academy, which, under Marsilio Ficino, would proceed to translate into Latin all Plato's works, the Enneads of Plotinus, and various other Neoplatonist works.