DIRGES FOR A DUCHESS
SCHNEPF, Dietrich.
Oratio de vita et morte illustrissimae principis ac dominae, D. Dorotheae Ursulae, illustrissimi principis ac domini D. Caroli, marchionis Badensis et Hochburgensis … filiae, illustriss. principis, ac domini D. Ludovici ducis Wirtenbergici et Teccii comitis … coniugis dilectiss. Quae anno 83, ipso die Pentecostes, Noribergae feliciter in Christo obdormivit. Habita in nobilissimo frequentissimo auditorio Tubingae a Theodorico Snepffio … Additis, et doctorum aliquot virorum, iuvenumque studiosorum … naeniis.
Tübingen, Alexander Hock, 1583.
4to, pp. [86], [2 (blank)]; woodcut initials and tailpieces; toned; a very good copy in modern cloth-backed burgundy boards; numbers inked at head of title, a few seventeenth-century marginal annotations, underlining, one manicule.
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Oratio de vita et morte illustrissimae principis ac dominae, D. Dorotheae Ursulae, illustrissimi principis ac domini D. Caroli, marchionis Badensis et Hochburgensis … filiae, illustriss. principis, ac domini D. Ludovici ducis Wirtenbergici et Teccii comitis … coniugis dilectiss. Quae anno 83, ipso die Pentecostes, Noribergae feliciter in Christo obdormivit. Habita in nobilissimo frequentissimo auditorio Tubingae a Theodorico Snepffio … Additis, et doctorum aliquot virorum, iuvenumque studiosorum … naeniis.
Scarce work issued following the death of Dorothea Ursula von Baden-Durlach (1559–1583), comprising a Latin funeral oration by the Tübingen professor of theology Dietrich Schnepf (1525–1586) and verses in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew by several scholars.
Dorothea was the daughter of Markgraf Karl II von Baden-Durlach and married Herzog Ludwig III von Württemberg in 1575, dying of a stroke at the age of just twenty-three. Schnepf (or Schnepff) here describes her as ‘a gift from God’, before quoting Homer, St Augustine, Cicero, Luther, St Basil, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, and the prophet Isaiah.
The verses include lines in Greek composed by Martin Crusius (1526–1607), Tübingen professor of Greek and Latin, known as the ‘champion of philhellenism in Europe’, and a Hebrew poem by the preacher and philologist Konrad Kircher, given in Hebrew, in transliteration, and in Latin translation.
The annotations show a careful reading of Schnepf’s funeral speech and appreciation for the Latin verse of the theologian and teacher Johann Scholtz (1558–1618). A note below the Hebrew poem reads ‘legi d. 14 Feb. 1652’.
No copies traced in the US; only one copy recorded in the UK (NLS).
USTC 680444; VD16 S 3306.
