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Tag Archives: humanism

Book of the Week — Clavis Historia Thuanae

07 Monday May 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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archivists, curia, Edict of Nantes, Edward Gibbon, England, French Enlightenment, French Revolution, Geneva, Germany, heresy, humanism, Index of Prohibited Books, Jac, Jacques Auguste de Thou, Jacques Dupuy, Keeper of the Royal Library, librarians, Parlement, philosophes, Portugal, Protestant, rare books, Roman Catholic, scholars, Spain, vellum, Voltaire, William Pitt

Clavis historiae thuanae: id est, nomenclature…
Jacques Dupuy (1591-1656)
Ratisponae: Sumtibus J. Z. Seidelii, 1696
Editio altera
D228 T552

Originally published in Geneva in 1634, this revised edition includes the word “Clavis” as the beginning of its title. The title translated into English reads: Nomenclature of Proper Names in the Historical Work of Jacques Auguste de Thou. Thou (1553-1617) was a historian whose fame and acclaim lasted well into the nineteenth century. His “History of His Own Time” (Historiarum sui temporis libri CXXXVIII) was added to the Index of Prohibited Books in 1609 for its humanist bent.

In spite of the ban and the humanism, his work received praise across the Roman Catholic/Protestant spectrum from Spain and Portugal to England and Germany. It was read by the curia it condemned and was a favorite of the Philosophes of the French Enlightenment. Voltaire referred to the “truthful eloquence” of Thou several times in his works. William Pitt quoted Thou, “the great historian of France,” in the early years of the French Revolution, and historian Edward Gibbon referred to Thou as the “authority of my masters.”

Thou was a leading member of Parlement. A Roman Catholic, he nonetheless counted many Protestants as his friends and helped negotiate the Edict of Nantes. He was appointed the Keeper of the Royal Library. His own library contained nearly 6,000 volumes, vast even by the standards of a private library-owning upper class. His “History” appeared in parts between 1604 and 1610. But the work was considered heresy in that it failed to condemn all Protestants outright. For this he fell from royal and papal favor.

The other indexer of Thou’s history was Jacques Dupuy, one of the many archivists and librarians who organized meetings of scholars at Thou’s home and, here, organized his book.

Rare Books copy bound in vellum, using loose leaves from another work. Pages are in double column format.

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On Jon’s Desk: Vergilii Maronis Dreyzehen Bücher von dem tewren Helden Enea, Humanism, and Tying it all Together

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by Jonathan Bingham in On Jon's Desk

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1559, 16th Century, Aeneid, Aldus Manutius, David Zopffeln, Erasmus, Frankfurt am Main, German Translation, humanism, Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples, Jon Bingham, Lorenzo Valla, Publius Vergilius Maro, Renaissance, Thomas More, Thomas Murner, Vergilii Maronis Dreyzehen Bucher von dem tewren Helden Enea, Virgil

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“A Brief Preface to the Reader. Please note (dear friendly reader) that Virgil’s books of the Aeneid were translated into German many years ago by an educated man and were published. Here they are again, newly printed, corrected in many places, the printing improved, and every book having its own beautiful illustration attached to it. You can see this for yourself while reading, more than I can quickly show or tell you. Herewith are Almighty God’s commands obeyed.”

– David Zöpffeln, Preface to Virgil’s Thirteen Books of the Hero Aeneas, 1559

Title: Vergilii Maronis Dreyzehen Bücher von dem tewren Helden Enea

Author: Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil)

Translated (Latin to German): Thomas Murner (1475 – 1537)

Printed: Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Printed by David Zöpffeln, 1559

Call Number: PA6811 A5 M8

 

We have many important historical contributions to thank the humanists for. This delightful version of Virgil’s Aeneid in German is one of them. Printed in 1559 by David Zöpffeln in Frankfurt using Thomas Murner’s 1515 translation, this palm-size treasure is a combination of several exciting 16th century developments. Holding it in your hand is like having a piece of the Renaissance all to yourself. Sometimes I feel Humanism gets too much hype; that putting the humanist movement on a pedestal risks overlooking a thousand years of important history. Yet if there is one way to convince me how fantastic the humanists were it would be to hand me a copy of Vergilii Maronis Dreyzehen Bücher von dem tewren Helden Enea.

What makes this book special? First, it is Virgil’s Aeneid. Second, it is Thomas Murner’s German translation. Third, it represents a culmination of Renaissance philosophical thinking that occurred in Europe during the 16th century. Let’s break this down.

Who was Virgil? Publius Vergilius Maro (70 – 19 BCE) was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period and is traditionally ranked as one of Rome’s greatest poets. He wrote three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. The Aeneid has been considered the national epic of ancient Rome since the time of its composition and is considered Virgil’s finest work and one of the most important poems in the history of western literature. Virgil worked on the Aeneid during the last eleven years of his life, commissioned, according to Sextus Propertius (a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age), by Augustus (born Gaius Octavius, great nephew of Julius Caesar, founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor). Modeled after Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid follows the Trojan refugee Aeneas as he struggles to fulfill his destiny and reach Italy –where his descendants Romulus and Remus were to found the city of Rome. Virgil’s work has had wide and deep influence in Western literature, most notably Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which Virgil appears as Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory.

Who was Thomas Murner? He was a German satirist, poet, and translator who lived from 1475 until 1536 or 1537 (accounts differ). He was educated, a member of the Franciscan Order, and a humanist. Never turning to secularism, Murner directed his satires against the corruption of the times and the Reformation (particularly Martin Luther). His most powerful and virulent satire was Von dem grossen Lutherischen Narren wie ihn Doctor Murner beschworen hat (On the Great Lutheran Fool, 1522). In 1523 Henry VIII invited Murner to England, where his writings caught the attention of the famous humanist Thomas More. John Headley (Professor Emeritus, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph.D. Yale University, 1960) postulates that it was Murner who first made More aware of Martin Luther’s radical ecclesiology (or theology as applied to the nature and structure of the Christian Church).

Okay, so what’s Humanism all about anyways? Humanism is an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems. In the Renaissance perspective, it was a cultural movement that turned away from medieval scholasticism and revived interest in ancient Greek and Roman thought. Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition.

What’s the big deal with Humanism and why is it so important? Humanism began as a revival of the study of ancient Greek and Roman texts, yet the humanists did not see themselves as being in conflict with Christianity. Some were secular leaders, but many were ordained priests. The humanists’ close study of Latin and Greek literary texts enabled them to discern important historical differences in the texts during various time periods. This was greatly aided by the influx and increased availability of many texts coming into Western Europe after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Humanist scholars increasingly turned to the study of Neoplatonism and Hermeticism, hoping to bridge the differences between the Greek and Roman Churches, and even between Christianity itself and the non-Christian world. The refugees from Byzantium brought with them Greek manuscripts, not only of Plato and Aristotle, but also of the early copies of the Christian Gospels, previously unavailable in the Latin West.

When the new invention of printing made these texts widely available, the Dutch humanist Erasmus (who had studied Greek at the Venetian printing house of Aldus Manutius) began a philological analysis of the Gospels in the spirit of Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), Italian humanist, rhetorician, educator, and Catholic priest, comparing the Greek originals to their Latin translations with a view to correcting errors and discrepancies in the latter. Erasmus, along with the French humanist Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples (c. 1455–1536), began issuing new translations of important historical texts. Italian and French humanism concentrated on scholarship and philology.

That is why this 1559 edition of Vergilii Maronis Dreyzehen Bücher von dem tewren Helden Enea is so fantastic – its connection to something bigger than itself. That is what makes all of us humans so special, as the humanists realized centuries ago. We are all individually and collectively amazing, like books, because of our ability to connect to and become part of something bigger than just ourselves – yet without fearing the loss of our personalities. This palm-size copy of Virgil’s Aeneid in German has some great personality, but it is also part of something big and wonderful.

~Contributed by Jon Bingham, Rare Books Curator

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Book of the Week – Emblemata et Aliqvot Nvmmi Antiqvi…

31 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

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Arnold Nicolai, Christopher Plantin, Cornelis Muller, emblem book, emblemata, engraving, Ferdinand I, Geoffroy Ballain, Gerard Janssen van Kampen, humanism, Hungarian, Janos Zsamboki, Kenneth Lawrence Ott, Lucas d'Heere, Maximilian II, Okanagan County Museum, Pieter Huys, Plantin, Plantini, Roman coins, Rudolf II, vignettes, wood engravings, woodcuts

Zsamboki, Emblemata, 1569, Cover
Zsamboki, Emblemata, 1569, Title Page
Zsamboki, Emblemata, 1569

Emblemata et Aliqvot Nvmmi Antiqvi…
Janos Zsamboki (1531-1584)
Antverpiae: Ex officina Christophori Plantini, mdlxix [1569]

The emblem book addressed a wide range of interests within humanist culture, among them the purpose of poetry and the relative power of the visual and the verbal. The first edition of physician Janos Zsamboki’s Emblemata was printed by the Plantin press in 1564. It was the first new emblem book to appear outside of Italy or France and is one of the largest and most influential examples of the genre at an early state of its development. An expanded edition was published in 1566 and was reprinted four times.

Janos Zsamboky was a Hungarian humanist who spent much of his life in Vienna as court-historiographer to the Habsburg emperors Ferdinand I, Maximilian II, and Rudolf II. This edition opens with an emblem dedicated to the newly elected emperor Maximilian II. Zsamboky prepared his emblem book at the end of two decades of traveling throughout Germany, France, Italy, and the Low Countries, before he entered the court in Vienna. Other works from Zsamboki include editions of classical texts and historiographical works. His was renowned for his scholarly patronage and an impressive collection of books and old manuscripts.

Emblemata consists of single pages containing a motto, a woodcut illustration and an epigram. Nearly a third of the emblems are also accompanied by dedications to well-known humanists, powerful courtiers, clergymen and friends and relatives. Zsamboki commissioned Lucas d’Heere to draw the illustrations. Christopher Plantin had half of d’Heere’s designs redrawn by Geoffory Ballain and Pieter Huys. The woodcuts were produced by Gerard Janssen van Kampen, Cornelis Muller and Arnold Nicolai. The Plantin printer’s device appears on the title-page. A full-page engraving of Zsamboki faces the preface. Various decorative vignettes throughout. Several leaves with wood engravings of Roman coins at the end of the book.

From the Kenneth Lieurance Ott Collection donated to the Okanagan County Museum, Washington.

alluNeedSingleLine

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