BEROALDO (Filippo). Libellus quo Septem sapientium... - Lot 58 - Ader

BEROALDO (Filippo). Libellus quo Septem sapientium Sententiae discutiuntur [Heptalogos sive Septem sapientes au colophon]. Bologna: Benedictus Hectoris, 18 December 1498. - In-4, 194 x 134 : (24 ff. last blank) [sig. a-c8]; Roman car., 27 lines. Marbled paperboard with bradel (modern binding). BMC, VI, p. 844. - Hain, *2974. - Pellechet, 2227. - Original edition dedicated to Johann von Wartenberg, of this opuscule of only 24 leaves by the Italian writer and scholar Filippo Beroaldo (1453-1505 ). This author was one of the great Italian intellectual figures of the time, whom Pico della Mirandola nicknamed the "living library". After successfully professing in Parma and Milan, he was called to Paris, where he taught for several months before being recalled to his home town of Bologna, where the university conferred on him the chair of professor of belles-lettres. The lessons he gave in Paris inspired the French with a taste for ancient literature and prepared the way for the birth of a third classical literature in Europe. He was the author of numerous works including neo-Latin poetry, commentaries by ancient authors, facéties, etc. He was the author of many books. In this small booklet he offers a commentary on the sentences of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, which he pronounced in the autumn of 1498. His aim was to desecrate the courteous value of these ancient sentences, emphasizing their moral charge and at the same time the consequences they had on the lives of the citizens. In this he sought to distance himself from the Neoplatonist milieu and to return to the tradition of the first Quattrocento typical of civil humanism. This edition is very rare. It was printed in Roman characters in Bologna by Benedictus Hectoris. This copy contains many ancient annotations, from different hands, to be studied. Both sides of the first and the last blank page are covered with old notes. On the top of the first