CASTELLESI (Adriano).

Lot 207
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Estimation :
1500 - 2000 EUR
CASTELLESI (Adriano).
De sermone latino, et modis latino loquendi. S.l.n.d. [at colophon]: Rome, Marcello Silber, October 1515. In-folio, soft vellum of the time. Original edition of the author's main work on the reformation of the Latin language. It is dedicated to the Prince of Spain, the future Charles V, who was only fifteen years old at the time. Born around 1485 in Corneto, Tuscany, and died around 1521-1522 in Venice, Adriano Castellesi was Bishop of Hereford, Bath and Wells, and Cardinal-Priest of St. Chrysogone. After studying Cicero, he set about writing this treatise on grammar to restore the Latin language to its original purity. The work includes among the introductory leaves the De sermone latino, a text already published by Silber in Rome in the first quarter of the 16th century (cf. Hain, no. 8342). The major part of the book, which is completely new, contains a list of expressions (also called a "collection of sentences") borrowed from classical authors (Plautus, Cicero, Terence, Vulpianus, Caesar, etc.), whose grammar is a model of elegance and perfection. The title is placed in a beautiful frame consisting of four woodcut borders decorated with fantastic animals, putti and trophies of arms; it bears in the centre the cardinal's coat of arms printed in red and black. A copy in period vellum. Traces of worms in the margins of a few leaves, some light wettings. Small lacks on the spine.
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