PORPHYRIUS (Publius Optatianus Porphyrius).

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PORPHYRIUS (Publius Optatianus Porphyrius).
Panegyricus dictus Constantino Augusto. Ex codice manuscripto Paulli Velseri. Augsburg, Ad insignia pinus [Mark Welser], 1595. In-4, brown half calf with small vellum corners (Modern binding in the old taste). First separate edition. Beautiful book of figurative poems. This eulogy in verse to the glory of the founder of Constantinople was written in the first half of the fourth century by Porphyrius and first published in 1590 in the Epigrammata of Peter Pithou (cf. Brunet, t. IV, col. 824). The poems that make up this eulogy are printed here for the first time in this highly original typographical layout. Porphyrius' poems stand at the crossroads of Greek technopaegnia and medieval carmina figurata. Alongside classical calligrams (an altar, for example), there are several grid poems (carmina cancellata) in which red printed "lineaments" draw abstract and complex geometric compositions most often related to the art of mosaic. The most remarkable of these is a galley whose mast is made up of the monogram of Christ (cf. Antoine Coron, "Avant Apollinaire, vingt siècles de poèmes figurés" in Poésure et Peintrie, d'un art, l'autre, 1993, pp. 25-46).
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