Niger

1508 · Best.-Nr. 4421 — Venice: Ioannes Rubeus Vercellensis 1508. Very good. Small 4to. 32 ff. some stains and repairs. Later inscriptions in Italian on final blank page. Bound in 20th-century French crushed niger morocco five raised bands on spine title lettered direct in the second compartment turn-ins gilt marbled pastedowns and endpapers edges plain. An attractive copy. A FOUNDATIONAL TEXT IN HUMANIST EDUCATION AND "ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR AND DISTINGUISHED GUIDES" TO LETTER WRITING WITH MODELS AND DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR SECRETARIES ON HOW NOT TO WRITE A LETTER. Burckhardt "Civilization of the Renaissance" emphasizes the importance of epistolography as an achievement of the true humanist: "To maintain a faultless style under all circumstances was a rule of good breeding and a result of habit." The present pamphlet reached Europe-wide fame and was published in 43 editions in the fifteenth century alone. Salloch describing the need of humanists for exacting manuals for letter-writing states: "One of the most popular and most distinguished of these guides was Franciscus Niger's published first in 1488 recte: 1487. He gives a review of the different kinds of letters from 'Epistola Commendaticia' to amatoria gratulatoria invectiva jocosa etc. furnishes examples of perfect letters from classical as well as contemporary sources and combines them with concise practical rules. Faultless Latin and a select use of the principles of rhetoric seem to be the characteristic features" Salloch Catalogue 234 no. 973. Venetian grammarian Francesco Negri 1452-1523 was a teacher at the Hungarian court of Hippolito d'Este who had attracted a number of distinguished scholars in his Italian retinue. See Farkas Gabor Kiss "Renaissance humanism in the age of the Jagiellonian kings in Hungary 1490-1526" in: Hungarian Studies Volume 36 issue 5 uploaded 2022. See also: Giovanni Mercati "Francesco Pescennio Negro Veneto protonotario Apostolico" in: Ultimi contributi alla storia degli umanisti Vatican City 1939 III 24-109 1-75. Ours is the earliest of the two copies currently on the market; the other was published 35 years later in 1543. EDIT16 CNCE 61805 locating five copies. Inexplicably omitted from Erdmann's massive 771-page "Ars Epistolica" catalogue 2014. Ioannes Rubeus Vercellensis unknown