Hymns, Hagiography, and Farce
[NEO-LATIN.]
Four works of neo-Latin verse and drama. Paris, the Estiennes and Simon de Colines, 1537–1543.
Four works in one vol., 8vo; woodcut printers’ devices to titles, woodcut initials; some light marginal dampstaining and toning, the fourth work with marginal losses/knawing to the last twelve leaves, f. 65 loose, final leaf worn and pasted inside rear cover; otherwise good copies in sixteenth-century limp vellum, yapp fore-edges, residual traces of ties, ‘Poeta Salmonius Macrinus’ in ink to spine; cockled and stained, yapp edges worn, rear hinge split; early ownership inscriptions of ‘Martinus Gillaeus magister in sintaxi’ to first title.
A nice sammelband of neo-Latin verse published in Paris by the Estiennes and Simon de Colines.
The volume opens with the first edition of Hymnorum libri sex by Jean Salmon Macrin (1490–1557), ‘one of the greatest French Renaissance Latin poets … originator of humanistic Neo-Latin poetry in France, called “the French Horace” by his contemporaries. The collection is dedicated to Cardinal Jean du Bellay, and the individual poems are dedicated to François I, Marguerite de Navarre, Anne de Montmorency, Guillaume Budé, et al.’ (Schreiber). This is followed by the second edition (first 1534) of the three-book Christian epic Christus by the poet Pierre Rosset, edited after his death by Hubert Sussanneau, who added some poems of his own and a dedication to François I.
The third work is the first edition of Johann Reuchlin’s Latin rendering of ‘La Farce de maistre Pathelin, the most famous of the late medieval French farces, which had a tremendous influence on later French literature, notably on Rabelais and Molière. This is not a literal translation but a clever adaptation, with original additions to the dialogue and a new epilogue. [Reuchlin] has preserved many passages in French and has left the gibberish spoken by Pathelin unchanged’ (Schreiber). The last item is the first edition of a life of the fifth-century saint Germanus of Auxerre, written in verse hexameters by the ninth-century teacher and hagiographer Heiric of Auxerre, ‘one of the best hagiographical poems of the times’ (Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church).
Contents:
1. SALMON MACRIN, Jean. Salmonii Macrini Iuliodunen. cubicularii regii, Hymnorum libri sex, ad Io. Bellaiu[m], S.R.E. cardinalem ampliss. Paris, Robert Estienne, 7 February 1537. pp. 238, [2]. BP16 16108673; Schreiber, The Estiennes 54; USTC 147264.
2. ROSSET, Pierre; Hubert SUSSANNEAU, editor. Petri Rosseti poetae laureati Christus. Secunda aeditio. Paris, Simon de Colines, October 1543. ff. 56. BP16 111413; Renouard, Simon de Colines 383; Schreiber, Simon de Colines 196; USTC 149060. Only two copies traced in the UK (BL, Bodleian).
3. REUCHLIN, Johann. Patelinus, nova comoedia, alias Veterator, e vulgari lingua in latina traducta per Alexandrum Co[n]nibertum LL. doctorem, et nuper quamdiligentissime recognita … Paris, Simon de Colines for François Estienne, 1543. ff. 28; some corrections in ink and pencil to f. 17r. BP16 111367; Renouard, Simon de Colines 381; Schreiber, The Estiennes 123; USTC 153752. Three copies traced in the UK (BL, Bodleian, John Rylands) and three in the US (Harvard, UC Berkeley, UNC).
4. HEIRIC OF AUXERRE. Divi Germani quondam Altissiodorensis episcopi vita, anno quidem ab hinc circiter septingentesimo, carmine conscripta, sed nunc primum typis excusa … Paris, Simon de Colines, 1543. ff. 72. BP16 111262; Renouard, Simon de Colines 377; USTC 140872.