Rare first edition of the Italian translation of the main work of the Dutch (Frisian) humanist Rodolphus Agricola (1444-1485), his seminal Dialectica, seu de inventione dialectica libri tres (1515), an influential study of the proper place of logic in rhetorical studies. The translator, Orazio Toscanella (ca. 1510-ca. 1580), did not just translate Agricolas text; he organised it and added useful annotations and "affronti" (comparisons) to aid the reader. He was a prolific editor and author living in Venice, known for his working on classical texts and producing educational works for learning rhetoric, and who played a key role in bringing the works of the northern philosopher Agricola to an Italian-speaking audience. In his other writings Toscanella frequently recommended Agricola alongside Aristotle and Quintilianus as essential reading for students of rhetoric and dialectic, making Agricolas complex theories on "topical invention", the method of finding arguments more accessible.
With occasional contemporary annotations in the margins, in two different hands. The spine ends show signs of wear, the edges and corners of the boards are slightly scuffed, with some loss of material on the front board. The title page and final page are very slightly soiled. Otherwise in very good condition. BM, STC Italian, p. 11; EDIT16 CNCE 531; Index Aurelianus, 101.791 (only 2 copies); OPAC SBN BVEE000124; USTC 808098; cf. Huisman, Rudolph Agrocola. A bibliography of printed works and translations (1985), no. 76; M. van de Poel (ed.), Over dialectica en humanisme. Rodolphus Agrocola (1991): extensive commentary; Contemporaries of Erasmus, I, pp. 15-17; not in Adams.