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Richardi Sbrulii equitis Foroiuliani Cesareiq[ue] poete ad magnificu[m] atq[ue] illustrem Maximilianu[m] Seuenbergensem: Divi Caroli Ro. et Hispaniaru[m] regis etc. oratorem undique ornatiss. moduli aliquot.

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First edition, very rare, of these neo-Latin poems by Sbruglio (c. 1480 – after 1525), whose work was esteemed by Erasmus and Pirckheimer, published in the year that Charles V became Holy Roman Emperor and addressed to his personal secretary.

A native of Cividale in northern Italy, Sbruglio studied and taught at Wittenberg (where the rector compared him to Ovid), Frankfurt, Cologne, and Ingolstadt, before being appointed poet and historiographer to Emperor Maximilian I. ‘Wherever he went he produced verses in honour of local princes and dignitaries. Reaction to them was mixed: Mutianus, Eobanus Hessus, Hermannus Buschius and Hutten were critical of Sbruglio and his talent but Erasmus, Zasius, Bonifacius Amerbach, Pirckheimer, and Vadianus showed appreciation’ (Contemporaries of Erasmus III, p. 211). Erasmus made Sbruglio one of the speakers in his colloquy Convivium poeticum (1523). The dedicatee, Maximilianus Transylvanus (c. 1490–1538), personal secretary to Emperor Charles V, was notably the author of the earliest published account of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world, preceding Pigafetta’s by two years, based on interviews with surviving explorers from the ship Victoria.

The poems collected here include a number of acrostics, spelling out ‘Carolus rex’ (for Emperor Charles V), ‘Ferdinandus princeps optimus’ (for Charles’s brother), and ‘Maximilianus’. Also included is an ode to the seventh-century saint Arnulf of Metz, with an allusion to the legend of him throwing his bishop’s ring into the Moselle river and praying that it should be returned to him by a divine sign (he found the ring in the belly of a fish several years later).

OCLC and Library Hub find one copy in the US (University of Pennsylvania) and one in the UK (BL).

BM STC German, p. 781; USTC 691177; VD16 S 2060; not in Adams or Brunet.