Rare first edition, in the original Latin, of the collected poetic works of the humanist and neo-Latin poet Janus or Joannes Secundus (Jan Everaerts) (1511-1536), who "ranks among the foremost poets of the world" as "the only famous [16th-century] Dutch poet" (Guépin, p. 231): "one of the most significant and enduring poets of the Renaissance" and "the outstanding Latin love poet of the northern Renaissance" (Price, p. 1). Although not quite twenty-five when he died, he published numerous poetic works from 1532 to 1536 but left most of his work unpublished at his premature death. Much of his poetry appeared for the first time in the present posthumous edition. Janus is most famous for his "Basia" (kisses): 19 lyric love poems influenced by Catullus. Janus's three books of elegies, especially the first book, comprising 11 love poems to his (possibly fictional) first love Julia, are also masterpieces of neo-Latin poetry.
Although revered internationally in his own century and influential throughout the 17th and 18th centuries (among his avid readers were Ronsard, Fleming, Huygens, Milton and Goethe), Janus's name has been eclipsed in the Netherlands by those of Cats and Vondel, in part because they wrote in Dutch.
Janus Secundus was born in The Hague. His father was a lawyer at the leading courts of the Low Countries and the family moved to Maastricht when Janus was sixteen. He studied law there and later studied at Bourges and at the University in Louvain. Though a native Dutch speaker and fluent in French, Janus had learned Latin with his older brothers at an early age and corresponded with them in Latin.
With 3 French verses in a near contemporary hand on the endleaves
Further with a near contemporary donation inscription on the title-page; a 19th-century bookplate on the inside front wrapper and blue ink stamp on the title-page. With the title-page somewhat worn and with stains in its margins plus a water stain in the first 10 leaves and a fainter marginal one some of the last few leaves, but otherwise in good condition. The sewing supports have broken at the front hinge and the velum wrapper is somewhat soiled, with a small corner of the back wrapper lost. Rare first edition of a seminal work of neo-Latin poetry by the first great Dutch poet, Janus Secundus. Adams S837 (1 copy); BMC STC (Dutch), p. 185; G. Joos, Uitgaven van Janus Secundus 10; Netherlandish books 27713 (10 copies); USTC 421142 (same 10 copies); Valkema Blouw, Typ. Batava 2673 (13 copies); not in Oberlé, Poètes néo-Latins; for Secundus: J.P. Guépin, "Tres fratres Belgae: brothers, poets and civil servants in the sixteenth century", in: The Low Countries, 8 (2000), pp. 231-238; David Price, Janus Secundus (1996).