EPISTOLAE CICERONIANO STYLO SCRIPTAE

1581. BUNEL, Pierre, and MANUZIO, Paulo. PETRI BUNELLI, GALLI, PRAECEPTORIS, & PAULAE MANUTII, DISCIPULI, EPISTOLAE CICERONIANO STYLO SCRIPTAE. Aliorum Gallorum Pariter et Italorum Epistolae eodem Stylo Scriptae. Geneva (Henri Estienne) 1581. Octavo. (vii)240(1)319pp. First and only authorized edition. A piracy may have been published in the same year. Estienne woodcut device on title (a philosopher standing at the foot of the Tree of Knowledge, and the motto "noli altum sapere.") The idea for this book stemmed from a conversation between the printer, Henri Estienne, who was known for his erudition, and King Henri III, the dedicatee. The King had asked why Italy, rather than France, claimed the most and best Ciceronian Latinists. Estienne went away and stewed a while, then described the conversation in Latin verse (quoted by Renouard), and published this comparison of letters written in Ciceronian Latin by Pierre Bunel (1499-1546) and by the great editor of Cicero, Paulus Manutius, son and successor to Aldus. Estienne here champions French Ciceronians, printing the letter in which Manutius admits having learned to write correctly from Bunel, his companion of 40 years (p.111). Bunel's "Familiares aliquot Epistulae," (Paris, Estienne, 1551) was intended for juvenile readers ("in Adulescentiorum Ciceronis studiosorum gratiam"). The second portion, with its own half-title and pagination, contains the letters of Italians such as Longolio and Bembo, and the third, also with half-title, is a group of letters from French Latinists, including King Francis I. In early limp vellum, spine titled in ink. Pastedowns pulling loose; front fly adhering partially to paste-down; light spotting to title, and light marginal dampstain persisting to p.6; browning and corners torn off from pp. x-xi, not affecting text. Covers show age and soil. Small leather library label to spine. (Renouard 1581.5. British Museum 1084 i. 5. OCLC lists 3 copies in the USA).