Janus

Opera. Nunc primum in lucem edita.

1541 · Best.-Nr. M23NGJ7IKRQ5 — Utrecht: Herman van Borculo 1541. Contemporary vellum wrapper straight-sewn on 3 tanned calf straps laced through the wrapper with the author’s name in large textura lettering reading up the spine. Small 8vo 16 x 10.5 cm. With Van Borculo’s winged stag couchant regardant and book device on the title page and another salient regardant with 2 books on the verso of the otherwise blank last leaf; and 3 vine-leaf ornaments Vervilet 7 8 & 43. Set in an Aldine-style italic type with upright capitals; 92 mm/20 lines with roman capitals for occasional words phrases and 2-line initials. Rare first edition in the original Latin of the collected poetic works of the humanist and neo-Latin poet Janus or Joannes Secundus Jan Everaerts 1511-1536 who "ranks among the foremost poets of the world" as "the only famous 16th-century Dutch poet" Guépin p. 231: "one of the most significant and enduring poets of the Renaissance" and "the outstanding Latin love poet of the northern Renaissance" Price p. 1. Although not quite twenty-five when he died he published numerous poetic works from 1532 to 1536 but left most of his work unpublished at his premature death. Much of his poetry appeared for the first time in the present posthumous edition. Janus is most famous for his "Basia" kisses: 19 lyric love poems influenced by Catullus. Janus's three books of elegies especially the first book comprising 11 love poems to his possibly fictional first love Julia are also masterpieces of neo-Latin poetry.Although revered internationally in his own century and influential throughout the 17th and 18th centuries among his avid readers were Ronsard Fleming Huygens Milton and Goethe Janus's name has been eclipsed in the Netherlands by those of Cats and Vondel in part because they wrote in Dutch.Janus Secundus was born in The Hague. His father was a lawyer at the leading courts of the Low Countries and the family moved to Maastricht when Janus was sixteen. He studied law there and later studied at Bourges and at the University in Louvain. Though a native Dutch speaker and fluent in French Janus had learned Latin with his older brothers at an early age and corresponded with them in Latin.With 3 French verses in a near contemporary hand on the endleavesFurther with a near contemporary donation inscription on the title-page; a 19th-century bookplate on the inside front wrapper and blue ink stamp on the title-page. With the title-page somewhat worn and with stains in its margins plus a water stain in the first 10 leaves and a fainter marginal one some of the last few leaves but otherwise in good condition. The sewing supports have broken at the front hinge and the velum wrapper is somewhat soiled with a small corner of the back wrapper lost. Rare first edition of a seminal work of neo-Latin poetry by the first great Dutch poet Janus Secundus.l Adams S837 1 copy; BMC STC Dutch p. 185; G. Joos Uitgaven van Janus Secundus 10; Netherlandish books 27713 10 copies; USTC 421142 same 10 copies; Valkema Blouw Typ. Batava 2673 13 copies; not in Oberlé Poètes néo-Latins; for Secundus: J.P. Guépin "Tres fratres Belgae: brothers poets and civil servants in the sixteenth century" in: The Low Countries 8 2000 pp. 231-238; David Price Janus Secundus 1996. Herman van Borculo, hardcover