BEROALDO (Filippo). Oratio Proverbiorum. Bologna:... - Lot 59 - Ader

BEROALDO (Filippo). Oratio Proverbiorum. Bologna: Benedictus Hectoris, December 17, 1499. - In-4, 194 x 134 : (28 ff. last blank) [sig. a-c8 d4]; car. Romans, 27 lines. Marbled paperboard with bradel (modern binding). BMC, V, p. 845. - Hain, *2966. - Pellechet, 2221. - Goff, B-489. Original edition dedicated to Christophe Vaitimille, student of Bologna, of this speech on the proverbs of Filippo Beroaldo (1453-1505 ). This opuscule is very important because it was the one that inspired Erasmus for his Adages. However, Erasmus did not confess his debt to Beroaldo, no doubt because the title of "inventor" of the collections of Latin proverbs was very close to his heart. The edition was printed in Roman type in Bologna by Benedictus Hectoris. A precious copy with an important 16th-century note on the first page, but above all on the last blank page a handwritten letter from the traveller, orientalist, Hellenist and Hebrew Nicolaus Clenardus (1495-1542). This letter was the subject of a study by Joseph Nève in 1930, in the Revue belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, pp. 887-896, under the title Une lettre autographe inédite de Nicolas Clénard. In the absence of comparison with other letters of Clenardus written in his own hand, we cannot affirm or deny the qualification of this letter as an autograph. In any case, it is indeed a hand from the 16th century, from the time of the famous traveller. Nève cannot explain the presence of this missive on the guard of the book. It could be a copy made for personal use by Clenardus, in order to keep track of his correspondence, as was often done. This letter is written in Latin on a page and a half. It is dated July 18 (and not July 22 as indicated by Nève), and the research that the latter has done, to which we refer, allows us to date it to 1531. It is addressed to Jean de Tartas, principal of the college of Lisieux in Paris, to whom he introduces the Z