Imprenta

1514 — ff. 360 (of 361) leaves. Lacks folio Fii (but with xerox facsimiles inserted). First signature detached, and somewhat browned. The title is printed in red and black, and has a central woodcut depicting Mount Parnassus, with the Muses, Bacchus and the temples of Delphi and Apollo. On the verso of the title page are the large woodcut arms of George, Duke of Saxony, showing a powerful knight in frontal view. This woodcut is dated 1514 in the banderole at the knight's head. The blank bottom 2.5" of the title have an old repair. Printed with wide margins in the text, and throughout there are marginal and interlinear Latin notes and comments in black ink by at least two sixteenth-century hands. (The manuscript notes here might reward better scholars than we are with interesting revelations). Folio. 330 mm. Highly decorated and tooled half alum tawed vellumized pig skin over oak boards binding. The spine covering is gone, revealing four double cord raised bands, and remains of an early manuscript used as binder's super. Clasps perished but the brass receivers on the front board are present. Johannes Beuschel was a German neo-latin poet and teacher at the Leipzig university. Probably born at Rothenburg ob der Tauber in the 1470's. From 1504 (and many years thereafter) he was a reader/professor of neo-Latin poetry. He probably died in Leipzig in 1522. Other names associated with him are: Erythropolitanus - Rotenburgensis; Johannes Tuberinus; Johannes Beusselius; Johannes Peussel or Pewschel; etc. He should not be confused with the anti-Jewish writer Johannes Matthias Tiberinus [ca. 1420-1500]. This is apparently an issue of one of the so-called lecture printings (Vortrag-Drucke). Used especially in Leipzig and Erfurt, they were issued in very small quantities for use in the university. Their wide margins were provided for just the sort of annotation seen in this example. They were apparently meant mainly for local sale. As a genre they are rather rare. Of this work we can locate no examples in the U.S. and only a few in Europe. Dedicated to George (the Bearded), Duke of Saxony (1471-1539), who became Duke of Saxony in 1500. He developed decided ability as a ruler. Among other actions, he took measures to suppress the robber-knights, and regulated the judicial system by defining and adjusting the jurisdiction of the various law courts. His court was better regulated than that of any other German prince, and he bestowed a paternal care on the University of Leipzig, where a number of reforms were introduced, and Humanism, as opposed to Scholasticism, was encouraged. The most significant era of his life unfolded after the time of this book, during Luther's Reformation. Most of his political measures, stood the test of experience, but in ecclesiastico-political matters he witnessed with sorrow the gradual decline of Catholicism and the spread of Lutheranism within his dominions, in spite of his earnest efforts and forcible prohibition of the new Protestant doctrine. Hardcover. Very Good. RARE. **PRICE JUST REDUCED! Safe ADD1