Opera Latina

1496

1496

Shoults Swc 1496 P

HC 12749*; BMC III 757; Goff P365; Kaplan 371; ISTC ip00365000

Basel: Johann Amerbach
Johann Amerbach (c. 1430-1513) was born at Reutlingen in Germany. He studied at the Sorbonne under Johann Heynlin before working in Nuremberg as a press corrector for Anton Koberger. He established a press at Basel about 1481 (1478 has also been suggested), and became its leading printer, issuing some seventy works. He was the first Basel printer to use roman type. At various times, Amerbach was in partnership with Jacob von Pforzheim, Johann Petri, and Johann Froben, and he had continued his association with Anton Koberger at Nuremberg, who acted as his publisher, and with Rusch at Strassburg, to whom he appears to have lent type

Half bound calf (scuffed) boards; detached. Spine badly cracked, disintegrating, and reading: Petra... 1496.

'De Vita Solitaria' and detail, Prologus (f.2a), Tractatus I (f.3a), binding, colophon, (Title page) Impressorum Annotatio, with manuscript notes, Sebastian Brant and De Commendatione.

First Collected Edition of the Latin poetry and prose works of Petrarch, edited by Sebastian Brant. This is the earliest authenticated edition of Petrarch's Works. See Cornell University Library, Catalogue of the Petrarch Collection Bequeathed by Willard Fiske (Oxford University Press, 1916), p. 1-2. 'When we attempt to estimate Petrarch's position in the history of modern culture, the first thing which strikes us is that he was even less eminent as an Italian poet than as the founder of Humanism, the inaugurator of the Renaissance in Italy. What he achieved for the modern world was not merely to bequeath to his Italian imitators masterpieces of lyrical art unrivalled for perfection of workmanship, but also and far more, to open out for Europe a new sphere of mental activity. Standing within the threshold of the middle ages, he surveyed the kingdom of the modern spirit, and, by his own inexhaustible industry in the field of scholarship and study, he determined what we call the revival of learning.' (Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition.)

Paper. 360 leaves; 275 x 190 mm. (fol.)
Roman type.
Title page bound at back; 'De Vita Solitaria' the first to appear in this particular edition.
F. 345a Colophon: Explicit Liber Augustalis: Beneuenuti de Rambaldis cum pluribus alijs opusculus Francisci Petrarchae: Impressus Basileae per Magistrum Ioannem de Amerbach: Anno salutiferi uirginalis partus: Nonagesimosexto supra millesimu quaterqz centesimum.
F. f359a (as bound): Librorum Francisci Petrarchae Basileae Impressorum Annotatio.
F. 359b - De Commendatione Impressionis Francisci Petrarchae Elogiu Sebastian Brant.
Rubricated throughout in red and blue.

1. Cinc Cordati (?)
2. Canon William Ardene Shoults
3. Selwyn College; Otago University Library