A CARDINAL'S COPY
BLANCHON, Jacques.
Iacobi Blanchoni Ucessiensis adversus Ludovicum Beneventanum abbatem Selestensem defensionum liber.
Lyons, Jean de Tournes, 1550.
4to, pp. 40; printer’s device on title, one large and several 5-line woodcut criblé, historiated, and grotesque initials; sporadic light foxing and browning; a very good copy in modern marbled boards, sixteenth-century ownership inscription of the Bibliotheca Altempsiana to title (see below).
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Iacobi Blanchoni Ucessiensis adversus Ludovicum Beneventanum abbatem Selestensem defensionum liber.
First edition of a very rare work of sixteenth-century Lyonnese Neoplatonism, an elegantly printed de Tournes edition.
Ostensibly a simple series of remarks against the theses of the (presumably sternly Scholastic) abbot of Sélestat, this is a tract of Renaissance moral philosophy. The theme of dignitas hominis concentrated the philosophical efforts of several Lyonnese men of letters inspired by Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. Like Charles de Bovelles and Pierre Boaistuau, Jacques Blanchon systematically harmonises Aristotle’s philosophy and science with the hermetic thought associated with the writings of Hermes Trismegistus.
Anticipating Charron and Montaigne, Blanchon does not accept demonology and witchcraft, exposing the foolishness of popular beliefs largely on grounds of common sense rather than strict Scholastic rationalism. Further chapters address ideas and knowledge; nature; the soul; the impact of need on morality; human freedom from predestinations and from the stars; and some false etymologies. Little is known of Blanchon, but he was also the author of a tract ‘De summo hominis bono’ published in the same year.
Provenance: The Bibliotheca Altempsiana was formed by the Austrian cardinal Marco Sittico Altemps (Mark Sittich von Hohenems Altemps, 1533–1595), nephew of Pope Pius IV, and housed in Palazzo Altemps in Rome, which he purchased in 1568. The collection was later considerably expanded by his grandson by his legitimated son Roberto, Giovanni Angelo Altemps (d. 1620), who in 1611 had purchased the library that once belonged to Cardinal Marcello Cervini (later Pope Marcello II).
In 1740 part of the library (particularly manuscripts) was absorbed into the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; what was left of the collection, mostly already dispersed, was sold at auction in London in 1907 (Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge, Catalogue of the choicer portion of the library of the Dukes of Altemps removed from Piazza S. Luigi dei Francesi, Rome ...) and Rome in 1908 (D.O. Rossi, Catalogue des livres et des manuscrits composant la bibliothèque des ducs d’Altemps
, lot 231, then bound with Sebastian Hoiandus’ 1572 Catholica in full vellum).
We find three copies in the UK (CUL, NLS, St Andrews), and one in the US (Newberry).
