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A commentary on and epithome of Laurentius Valla's De Elegantiis

BIENATO, Aurelio.
In elegantiarum sex libros Laurentii Vallae disertissimi epithomata nuper recognita.

Charming woodcut printer's device showing a cat with a mouse in its mout, with motto 'Dissimilium infida societas' underneath, repeated on verso of last leaf.

Charming woodcut printer's device showing a cat with a mouse in its mout, with motto 'Dissimilium infida societas' underneath, repeated on verso of last leaf.



Venice, Ioan. Antonio de Nicolinis de Sabio for Melchiore Sessa, 1539. Small 8vo. Later three quarter vellum, gilt and ribbed spine, boards covered with decorated paper. Charming woodcut printer's device showing a cat with a mouse in its mout, with motto 'Dissimilium infida societas' underneath, repeated on verso of last leaf. 63, (1) lvs. (Collation: A-H8).

Rare Venetian post-incunable edition of this pedagogical, humanist treatise, dedicated to an adolescant nobleman, Sebastiano de Agustinis, by Aurelio Bienati (ca. 1450-1496). Born in Milan, Bienato studied at the University of Naples and was appointed bishop of Martirano (Catanzaro) in 1485.
This work is a commentary on and shortened version of the famous and influential De elegantia latinae linguae libri sex by the humanist Lorenzo Valla (1407-57). The De Elegantiis is a very original work in which Valla subjected the forms of Latin grammar and the rules of Latin style and rhetoric to a critical examination, and placed the practice of composition upon a foundation of analysis and inductive reasoning. It was a basis for the movement of the Humanists to reform Latin prose style to a more classical and Ciceronian direction on a scientific basis. Valla's work was controversial when it appeared, but its arguments carried the day. As a result, humanistic Latin sought to purge itself of post-Classical Latin words and features, and became stylistically very different from the Christian Latin of the European Middle Ages.
This commentary by Aureluio Bienato was published for the first time in 1479, followed by two other incunable editions in 1488 and 1491. The first fifteenth-century edition appeared in Venice in 1521; in 1531 an edition was prited by Melchiore Sessa and our copy belongs to the thrid sixteenth-century edition.

Very good copy.
Diz. biogr. degli Italiani 10, pp. 369-70; cf. GW IV, 4343-4345; not in Adams nor STC Ital.; NUC one copy only; cf. Dict. Histoire et de Geographie ecclésiastiques VIII, 1439.

Related Subjects: Education  Humanism  Neolatinism  Pedagogy & Didactics  Venice 

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