NOTED NEO-LATINIST, IN A PAPAL BINDING
HOSSCHIUS, Sidronius.
Sidronii Hosschii e Societate Iesu elegiarum libri sex. Praemittuntur illustrissimorum virorum poemata in obitum Sidronii Hosschii scripta iussu … Alexandri VII pontificis maximi.
Antwerp, Balthasar Moretus ‘ex officina Plantiniana’, 1656.
8vo, pp. [16], xx, [4], 160, [8], 142, [2, blank]; woodcut device to title, woodcut initials and tailpieces; some toning and light marginal dampstaining; very good in contemporary Dutch vellum, double gilt fillet border to covers, spine in compartments with title in ink, yapp fore-edges; a little marked; central gilt arms of Pope Alexander VII to covers (gilt mostly rubbed away), modern pencil notes to front endpapers.
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Sidronii Hosschii e Societate Iesu elegiarum libri sex. Praemittuntur illustrissimorum virorum poemata in obitum Sidronii Hosschii scripta iussu … Alexandri VII pontificis maximi.
First collected edition of the neo-Latin verse of the Flemish Jesuit and poet Sidronius Hosschius (Sidron de Hossche, 1596–1653), edited after his death by his fellow poet Jacques van de Walle (1599–1690), and prefaced with poems on Hosschius’ death commissioned by the future Pope Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi, 1599–1667), to whom the work is dedicated, and whose arms are stamped on the covers.
Having worked in his youth as a shepherd, Hosschius joined the Jesuits at Tongeren in Belgium. He served as a teacher, preacher, and, briefly, as tutor to the sons of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, ending his days as superior at Tongeren. ‘His contemporaries held him in great esteem, and acclaimed him as worthy of the Augustan age of Latin poetry’ (Catholic Encyclopedia).
The verse collected here covers human life (‘Cursus vitae humanae’), deliverance from disease, St Andrew on the cross, sleep, the Virgin Mary, the death of George Chamberlain (English bishop of Ypres), the suffering of Christ (‘De Christo patiente’), the tears of St Peter (‘Lacrymae S. Petri’), and the death of two Spanish soldiers (one from a spear, the other from love). There are elegies addressed to numerous fellow Jesuits (including van de Walle), to the Marquis of Aytona, and to Archduke Leopold, as well as ‘heroic epistles’ and epitaphs. This edition is sometimes found with Othonis Zylii e Societate Iesu Cameracum obsidione liberatum (18 pp.) at the end. Some copies were bound with Alexander VII’s arms, in either vellum or black morocco.
Sommervogel IV, 475; STCV 6843492; USTC 1534373. Library Hub notes four copies in the UK (BL, Jesus College Oxford, NLS, University of Glasgow); OCLC records seven in North America.